Vendredi, 3 juillet⋅à 12:00
Repas du labo & jeux extérieurs
Prévoir : gourdes d’eau et nappes pour vous assoir.
Evénement de type “auberge espagnole”: chacun amenant de quoi se restaurer et le laboratoire fournira les boissons (softs et bières). Pour des raisons d’allergies alimentaire etc., ce que vous amènerez ne devra pas être partagé avec vos collègues (ou alors vous le faites en conscience et confiance!). Nous prolongerons cette auberge espagnole par un après-midi festif et vous demandons donc d’amener des jeux d’extérieurs en espérant que la météo permettra de profiter à fond de cette demi-journée conviviale !
Jeudi, 9 juillet⋅-11:00 Amphi Riquet
Séminaire Gianluca Cioci
Titre: “Structural Investigations of CAZymes for the Synthesis of Biopolymers”
Polymers are ubiquitous in modern life,with applications ranging from everyday products to advanced technologies inthe food, health, and environmental sectors. However, less than 1% of the ~350million tons produced annually are bio-based, while the vast majority stilloriginate from fossil resources. The need for sustainable alternatives hastherefore intensified interest in renewable polymers that are recyclable,biocompatible, and potentially bioactive. Carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes),which catalyze polymerization, glycosylation, phosphorylation, and relatedreactions, offer powerful biosynthetic routes to such materials. However, theirengineering requires a detailed understanding of catalytic mechanisms,substrate recognition, and reaction dynamics, which are often obscured by theircomplex and dynamic architectures.
At TBI’s Biocatalysis department, we investigate these enzymesusing complementary structural biology techniques, including cryo-electronmicroscopy, X-ray crystallography, small-angle X-ray scattering, and nuclearmagnetic resonance spectroscopy, combined with biochemical assays and molecularmodeling. I will present recent insights into glycoside phosphorylases, glucansucrases, and glucan kinases, highlighting howthese approaches reveal enzyme structure, conformational changes and catalyticdynamics. This integrated strategy provides a foundation for the rationalengineering of biocatalysts for the sustainable production of polysaccharidesand glycosylated compounds.
