Glycosylphosphatidyl-Inositol anchors

GPI-Anchor
So-called Glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) anchors are a relatively recently discovered class of glycans that covalently bind many proteins to the outer leaflet of a cell membrane. A concise characterization of the many possible biological functions of GPIs is still missing. Although GPI anchors occur in a vast number of different forms, all of them bear an invariant carbohydrate part, a backbone, that may serve as a starting point for a systematic numerical investigation. The
backbone establishes the actual connection from the membrane to a protein, and is also thought to be key structure in developing vaccines against Malaria. Presently, a complete version of a GPI anchor is being modeled by extension of the force field parametrization of similar structures. The final goal is to study the whole structure immersed in a lipid bilayer, and come closer towards suggesting possible functions of this intriguing molecule.
The GPI project is carried out in close collaboration with the department of biomolecular systems of Prof. P. Seeberger.