Current Research

Disulfide relay system in mitochondria. In collaboration with Prof. K.Tokatlidis ( IMBB and Univ. of Crete ) we have purified, crystallized and currently try to improve the crystals in order to determine the structure of sulfhydryl oxidase ΔΝ - Erv1 p ( Essential for respiration and vegetative growth protein ) from mitochondria of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Pre-protein translocation. In collaboration with the research groups of Prof. A. Economou ( IMBB and Univ. of Crete ) and Dr. K. Segers ( K.U. Leuven, Belgium ), we embarked on the purification, crystallization and , with anticipation , the structure determination of the Sec-translocon component SecA1-ATPase from the pathogen Staphylococcus aureus.

Peptaibol antibiotics. In collaboration with Prof. H. Brückner ( Univ. of Giessen, Germany ) we have determined the crystal structure of the hydrophobic, antibiotic peptide trichovirin at 0.9 Å resolution from tiny crystals (average dimension, ~20 µ m ) with synchrotron radiation on the micro-focus beam-line I24 at DIAMOND, U.K.

Bacterial antibiotic resistance. In collaboration with Prof. E. Scoulica ( Dept. of medicine, Univ. of Crete ) we have cloned, expressed and purified aminoglycoside adenylyltransferase (aada6) from a clinical, pathogenic strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Some biochemical and biophysical characterizations of this dimeric enzyme have been carried out. The structural analysis awaits crystallization.

Electron transport proteins. In collaboration with Prof. P. Kyritsis ( Univ. of Athens ) and Dr. S. Sottini ( Univ. of Leiden ) we embarked on a study of the electronic structure of the cobalt-substituted copper-protein, pseudoazurin from A. faecalis.