Calendar Name: seminars Scheduled for: Thursday, February 10 2011, 11:00 - 12:30 Event text: Dr Renier Van der Hoorn Chemical Genomics Centre of the Max Planck Society Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research Cologne GERMANY Details: "Mining the active proteome from plant-pathogen interactions" ABSTRACT The activity of proteins in proteomes and living organisms can be displayed with Activity-based Protein Profiling (ABPP). ABPP is a technology that makes use of small molecule probes that label the active site of enzyme classes in an activity-dependent manner. Labeling is covalent and irreversible and facilitates the separation and detection of labeled proteins using protein gels and the purification and identification by mass spectrometry. This method displays functional proteomic information, which contrasts strongly with traditional transcriptomic and proteomic datasets, which are poor predictors on the functional state of proteins.The introduction and application of ABPP in plant science is the mission of the Plant Chemetics laboratory. We have validated and introduced activity-based probes for papain-like cysteine proteases, vacuolar processing enzymes, serine hydrolases, lipases, acyltransferases and the proteasome. Probes for kinases, glycosidases and other enzymes are being developed and tested. Procedures for in vivo labeling and imaging have been established. Studies of plant-pathogen interactions using these probes have revealed that the proteasome and Cys proteases are activated during immune responses, and suppressed during infection by successful pathogens. These examples illustrate the use of ABPP to study protein activities in any organism to address many different biological questions.