11/07/2022
By Suzanne Young

The Kennedy College of Science, Department of Chemistry, invites you to attend a master's thesis defense by Wendy Gavin entitled “Characterization of Titin N2A-IS Protein Using Three-Dimensional Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy and Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry.”

Date: Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022
Time: 9 a.m.
Location: Olney 522.

The committee will be composed of Matt Gage (chair), Jin Xu, Jeffrey Moore and Michael Ross. A brief abstract is provided below.

Abstract: The sarcomere is home to titin which is the largest known protein in the human body. Titin spans half a sarcomere from the M-line to the Z-disk, and it plays important roles in striated muscle which are still being discovered and understood. Some of the discovered roles of titin include passive force, sarcomere organization and maintenance, mechanosensing, and signaling. The interaction with multiple binding partners explains how titin’s enormous size and modular structure account for its various roles. One of the major challenges is to identify which variants of titin are important in disease and health. The titin filament consists of 300 individual immunoglobulin (Ig)-like and fibronectin-like domains that are interspersed with intrinsically disordered regions and signaling domains. The N2A component of titin is found in the I-band region which is considered is the elastic segment of titin. The I-band region is composed of four Ig regions and a unique region inserted between Ig domains 180 and 181. The insertion sequence (IS) of N2A called N2A-IS is the focus of this research.

All interested students and faculty members are invited to attend.