Cellular and Molecular Biology

The aim is to analyze the biophysical properties of viroporins, ion channels expressed on the membranes of virus-infected cells (proteins E and ORF3a from Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2).
References
Luganini A et al.Mbio 2023 Aug 31;14(4):e0074923.
Luganini A et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Dec 26;115(52):E12370-E12377.

Operationally, the thesis project consists of:
- Nanopore Reader setup (parameter setting) that will be installed on May 30 at our laboratory (Turin Cell Physiology Lab, DBIOS, via Accademia Albertina 13, Turin)
- development of experimental protocols for purification and expression in artificial membranes of ion channels (particularly viroporins)
- measurement of single channel currents of viroporins
- quantitative analysis of single channel traces

Scientific supervisors: Proff. Luca Munaron and Federico Ruffinatti