In last November, CALIXAR, expert in the field of fully native and functional membrane proteins isolation, joined APPICOM event. As a sponsor, CALIXAR is proud to award one of the promising young researchers by the “CALIXAR Poster Prize 2021”.For the second Workshop APPICOM, the jury had the pleasure to deliver this Prize to Stephane Jedele from the ’Université de Paris’, INSERM UMR S1134 for his poster “KCCN4: insights into molecular activation of K+ channel complexed to Calmodulin”.This work consists in using the experimentation of cryo-EM structures of the calcium-activated potassium (K+) channel KCNN4 as a starting point for molecular modeling and molecular dynamics simulations. The behavior of the complete channel embedded in a lipid bilayer has been simulated for the first time. This was done to understand the channels global functioning, especially how it can activate by switching between 3 known conformations which were experimentally determined. As a result, the simulations showed highly correlated movement between regions over the whole complex and revealed some shape constraints imposed by KCCN4 constitutive partner calmodulin in the K+ ions pathway.Stephane was rewarded and congratulated for his research and poster on KCCN4.
