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[Biophysics seminar] Horacio Guzman, “Adsorption patterns of the WT, delta and omicron RBDs onto polarized model surfaces”
7. March, 2023 at 14:00 - 15:00
| Respiratory viruses are airborne and commonly form microdroplets which can be easily adsorbed onto surfaces of different materials, like plastics, metals or skin. Although these situations occur on a daily basis, less is known about the mechanisms and effectiveness of the virus-materials interaction. In particular, when spike proteins mutate in the binding regions, as is the case of SARS-CoV-2 where several residues mutated in the Receptor-Binding-Domain (RBD) and correspond to different Variants of Concern (VoC). Potentially, simplified modeled surfaces with manifold polarities and characterized by a contact-angle can serve as sensors to assess the adsorption mechanisms of virus proteins. Here, we perform extensive molecular dynamics simulations of three RBDs interacting with hydrophobic and hydrophilic substrates. Overall, the simulations show a higher amount of contacts with the hydrophobic surface, in spite of the H-bonds formed at the hydrophilic substrate. Considering two regions of adsorption at the RBD-surface interface with the same total amount of residues, we show how the regions balances out (hops) during adsorption and favors contact formation. |
| The seminar will take place in the tearoom of the F1 department. |
