Medchem Seminar Series - Björn Burmann, University of Gothenburg

Speaker: 

Björn Burmann

Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Gothenburg​

Title: 

Revealing the functional repertoire of mitochondrial machineries by integrated NMR approaches

Abstract: Protein quality control is an essential cellular function mainly executed by a vast array of different proteases and molecular chaperones. My team has a long-standing interest to understand the underlying functional principles of the systems residing in the bacterial periplams as a model system, but in recent years have turned our attention to related mitochondrial machineries. I will present our latest insight into the underlying allosteric regulation of two mitochondrial serine proteases, HtrA2 and LonP1 (1-3). Our studies provide fresh insight into their functional repertoire and provide us with a deeper understanding of their role in health and disease.

I will demonstrate our efforts to study the human mitochondrial RNAP polymerase by solution NMR approaches (4). Using sophisticated 19F-NMR approaches (5) we have started to unravel the structural adaptations associated with the pre-initiation state of mitochondrial transcription potentially providing highly complementary novel information to existing structural studies of the later transcription stages.

1          Aspholm, E. E., Lidman, J. & Burmann, B. M. Structural basis of substrate recognition and allosteric activation of the proapoptotic mitochondrial HtrA2 protease. Nat. Commun. 15, 4592 (2024).

2          Aspholm, E. E. et al. Feedback regulation of the HtrA2 protease by its substrate XIAP drives the apoptotic cascade. in preparation (2025).

3          Sallova, Y., Lidman, J., Haun, F., Matečko-Burmann, I. & Burmann, B. M. pH-dependent adaptations modulate the function of the proteolytic domain of the human mitochondrial Lon protease. in preparation (2025).

4          Burridge, C. & Burmann, B. M. Modulation of the human mitochondrial RNAP probed by 19F-NMR spectroscopy. in preparation (2026).

5          Burridge, C. & Burmann, B. M. 19F NMR as a molecular reporter: Labelling strategies and methods for probing biomolecular motion and exchange. Chemistry – Methods, e202500155 (2026).

More information about the MedChem Seminar Series and the schedule is here.