Exploring the Dynamics of Biological Macromolecules at Angstrom Scale

This research project plans to study Guanylate Kinase (GK) using nano-rheological techniques. These biological macromolecules will be immersed in solutions with different solvents in order to observe how the conformational dynamics of the molecules change.
An oscillatory force will be applied by attaching enzymes to a gold-coated surface and to gold nanoparticles. An additional gold-coated surface will be placed on top of the setup in order to create a parallel plate capacitor configuration. An oscillatory voltage will then be applied across the capacitor to drive the gold nanoparticles and exert a force on the enzymes. The setup will detect the ensemble averaged movement of the enzymes at the Angstrom scale in order to measure the conformational dynamics.
The specific goals of this research project include the following: creating a one-of-a-kind experimental setup which will be useful for a plethora of other experiments in the future, deforming enzymes and recording their levels of deformation, changing what enzymes and solvents are used, and comparing data from the experiments. The results of the enzymes’ viscoelastic behavior which will be useful for further research in the fields of Biophysics, Biology, and Chemistry.