Mankin and Vázquez-Laslop Lab



Address (View in Google Maps) Center for Biomolecular Sciences - m/c 870, University of Illinois at Chicago 900 S Ashland Avenue Chicago IL 60607 Tel: (312) 413-1406 Fax: (312) 413-9303 E-mail: shura@uic.edu People Kyle Mangano Graduate student kmangano@uic.edu Amira Kefi Graduate student akefi2@uic.edu Dorota Klepacki Senior Research Specialist klepacki@uic.edu Teresa Szal Visiting Senior Research Specialist tszal@uic.edu Nikolay Aleksashin Research Specialist naleks2@uic.edu Maxim Svetlov Research Assistant Professor msvet2@uic.edu Chetana Baliga Postdoctoral Research Associate cbaliga@uic.edu Previous Lab Members Publications Lectures Useful Links Privacy Statement Lab stuff (Authentication required)		Alexander (Shura) Mankin, Nora Vazquez-Laslop Professor Research Professor *Research* The main areas of research are: 1. Molecular mechanisms of protein synthesis The ribosome has the ability to monitor the sequence of the polypeptides it makes. It can recognize and respond to specific nascent peptide sequences. Functional interactions between the ribosome and the nascent peptide are used for the regulation of gene expression and may also facilitate protein folding and targeting. We are investigating the molecular mechanisms of nascent peptide-sensing by the ribosome and studying the ribosomal response to regulatory sequences in the nascent peptides. 2. Mechanisms of antibiotic action Many antibiotics interfere with the growth of pathogenic bacteria by inhibiting protein synthesis. However, the mechanisms of action of many antibiotics are unknown or unclear. We are studying the sites of binding and mechanisms of action of several new antibiotics. We have recently found that many ribosome-targeting antibiotics inhibit translation in a context-specific manner and arrest translation only at specific mRNA codons. The new genome-wide in vivo approaches and codon-specific in vitro techniques help us understand molecular mechanisms of context-specificity of antibiotic action. We are also exploiting the newly discovered properties of antibiotics to study gene expression and regulation of translation. 3. Ribosome engineering Ribosome has evolved to assemble 20 natural amino acids into proteins. The ability to modify and expand the ribosome functionality is one of the main tasks of synthetic biology. We have recently engineered Ribo-T: the ribosome, in which rRNA of the large and small ribosomal subunits are fused into a single molecule and as a result, ribosomal subunits are linked together. We are exploiting the properties of Ribo-T to create an orthogonal translation system in the cell and explore the functions of the ribosome as an RNA-based enzyme. The work in the laboratory is funded by: Research grants from NIH, NSF and pharmaceutical industry. We collaborate with the laboratories of: - Dr. Yury Polikanov (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA) - Dr. Michael Jewett (Northwestern University, USA) - Dr. Jaanus Remme (Tartu University, Estonia) - Dr. Allen Buskirk (Johns Hopkins University, USA) - Dr. John Christodoulou (University College London, UK)