The influence of the substrate on the tau protein secondary structure
Duration: 2021 - 2022
Miniatura IV project is focused on the assessment of the influence of the surface on the conformation of tau protein. The fact that the interaction with the surface implies rearrangements of the secondary structure (β-sheet, α-helix, β-turns, coils) of proteins has already been known in the literature. But the lack of selective experimental techniques that would provide the information regarding the structural transitions in respect to single molecules, largely limited the study of this issue. The development of nanospectroscopic techniques, such as Tip-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (TERS) and infrared nanospectroscopy (AFM-IR and nanoFTIR), has provided the possibility to obtain spectroscopic signal for single objects with nanometer spatial resolution. Therefore, in this project, it was proposed to study the conformation of tau protein using bulk spectroscopic techniques (Raman and infrared spectroscopy) and after the deposition of tau protein onto a gold and mica surface using TERS. The rearrangements of tau secondary structure will be studied for tau protein being at subsequent phases of the aggregation process.