SUPR
Cryo-EM data processing for structure determination of mosquito odorant receptors
Dnr:

NAISS 2024/22-840

Type:

NAISS Small Compute

Principal Investigator:

Topi Haataja

Affiliation:

Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Start Date:

2024-06-07

End Date:

2025-07-01

Primary Classification:

10601: Structural Biology

Webpage:

Allocation

Abstract

The purpose of our project is to solve molecular structures for a variety of odorant receptors (ORs) from mosquitoes. Knowing and understanding the structures of these receptors will help in understanding how disease causing mosquitoes detect different odors and detect and choose their prey. We have successfully expressed and purified a number of these receptors, and are looking to move forward towards protein structure determination using single molecule Cryo-EM. We have gained access to instruments for grid preparation, single-particle screening and for subsequent single-particle Cryo-EM within Uppsala and Stockholm. The initial screening of Cryo-EM grids containing our first target receptors has been highly promising, and we will be collecting our first full datasets imminently. We are therefore looking to use the Tetralith cluster for Cryo-EM data processing purposes. The data processing would be done using the PReSTO software stack available on Tetralith, including the CryoSparc and Relion software. Consequently, we would predominately use the Tetralith cluster for periodical, intense GPU computational work. This requires access to GPU CUDA processing clusters significantly more powerful than what we currently have access to at SLU. Handling the large datasets resulting from Cryo-EM data collection, and necessary for structure determination and refinement, will also require access to storage volumes larger than the default allocation for projects on Tetralith, as detailed in the Abridged Data Management Plan section. If successful, the research is likely to lead to scientific publications in high impact journals. However, the field is moving rapidly, and we are thus hoping to expedite progress by gaining quick access to the computational and data storage resources at Tetralith (Proposal NAISS 2024/22-840) and Centre storage (Proposal NAISS 2024/6-203).