A scientific seminar on "Cytoplasmic domain of calcium-activated K+ channel (BK)" was held at the Institute of Biophysics

A scientific seminar on the topic of "Cytoplasmic domain of the K⁺ channel activated by calcium (BK)" was held at the AR MSE Biophysics Institute.

The seminar was opened by the executive director of the institute, Ph.D. Karim Gasimov, who spoke about the importance of the topic and the necessity of conducting extensive modern research in this direction.

Then, Fidan Qudratova, a junior researcher at the institute's "Molecular and cellular biochemistry" laboratory, made a presentation discussing the conducted scientific research on the topic. She provided comprehensive information about the types and roles of K⁺ channels, the structure of the BK channel, and discussed the cloned recombinant expression of the cytoplasmic domain of both natural and mutant forms of the channel. She talked about the inoculation of the cytoplasmic domain into plasmid vectors, cultivation of the M15 strain of E. coli in culture with the vector, induction of cell growth with IPTG for protein synthesis, cell lysis using ultrasound, purification of the homogenate, loading of the supernatants onto Ni²⁺ affinity columns, elution of the recombinant channel protein from the columns with imidazole buffer, and determination of the purity and quantity of the purified recombinant proteins, as well as Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis.

The presenter noted that this is the first time in Azerbaijan that a gene encoding a human-origin protein has been cloned into a plasmid vector and expressed in a prokaryotic system, resulting in the use of recombinant proteins in research.

At the end of the presentation, there was an extensive exchange of ideas, and questions were answered. The need to further expand these studies and the necessity of cloning and recombinant expression of several cell surface receptors were also discussed.

30 April 2024

Share