Expanding the Crosslinking Chemistry Toolbox for Enhanced Protein Interaction Analysis

Project title

Expanding the Crosslinking Chemistry Toolbox for Enhanced Protein Interaction Analysis

Description

Partners and Collaborators

Dr Megan Wright

Professor Richard Bayliss 

Description 

Proteins rarely act alone. Instead, they form complex and constantly changing networks of interactions that control virtually every process in living cells, from growth and development to responses to disease. Understanding when, where and how proteins interact is one of the major challenges in modern biology and is essential for developing new medicines and therapies.

This project will develop a new generation of chemical tools to capture and study protein interactions directly within biological systems. Using advances in synthetic chemistry and mass spectrometry, we will create an innovative toolbox of "crosslinkers" - small molecules that can trap interacting proteins together, enabling researchers to identify and map these interactions in unprecedented detail. Unlike existing technologies, our new reagents will be designed to target a wider range of protein building blocks (amino acids) and, crucially, can be activated at specific times using light or chemical triggers. This will allow us to investigate how protein interaction networks change during dynamic biological processes.

The technology will be applied to challenging biological questions, including understanding how proteins involved in cell division and cancer signalling assemble and function.

By expanding the capabilities of crosslinking mass spectrometry, this research will provide powerful new approaches for studying protein structure, dynamics and cellular mechanisms. Ultimately, it will help researchers uncover the molecular basis of disease, identify new therapeutic opportunities, and accelerate the development of next-generation medicines.