Henrik J. Jürgensen

Master Student

Key Research Interests
Molecular biology, Mechanisms in Cancer Invasion. Heterologous Gene Expression

Current project
The integral membrane protein urokinase plasminogen activator receptor associated protein (uPARAP) is involved in the internalization of collagen fragments, which is necessary for intracellular degradation of these fragments. In order to clarify the interaction between uPARAP and collagen in detail, determination of the three-dimensional structure of uPARAP could prove very helpful. In order to visualize the structure in sufficient resolution to obtain detailed information about residues involved in the binding to collagen, we aim to analyze the protein by x-ray crystallography.

Membrane proteins are not easily crystallized. For this reason I am working on producing truncated proteins consisting of elements of uPARAP. These truncated versions should more easily crystallize. The extracellular part of uPARAP consists of 10 domains. The first four domains are believed to be important for the functionality of uPARAP and I am currently focusing on producing two versions of uPARAP, one consisting of the first three domains(uPARAP D1-D3) and one consisting of the first four (uPARAP D1-D4). The truncated proteins will be expressed in Pichia pastoris. They will be fused to a known Pichia signal sequence, which should ensure secretion of the proteins to the media and ease protein purification. Future challenges may include improper folding of truncated proteins due to altered glycosylation caused by the Pichia host or improper cystine formation.

Career
Stud. polyt. at DTU, 2003 -
Masters Student at Finsenlab, 2008 -
Exchange student at Pennsylvania State University, Fall 2006