Aquaporin engineering, a computational approach

• Main Author: Wei, Xin
• Other Authors: Mu Yuguang
• Format: Student Research Poster
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: Aquaporin Z; Molecular dynamics simulation
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/95480; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/8968
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Aquaporin is a family of membrane proteins devoted to transporting water molecules across biological membranes. This protein family is ubiquitously present in all three kingdoms of life, the Archea, Eubacteria and Eukaryotes. Water permeation rate is orders of magnitude higher in Aquaporin-embedded membrane than normal lipid bilayer. Moreover, some members of the Aquaporin family, such as Aquaporin Z, have excellent solute rejecting ability against small uncharged solutes like urea, glycerol and glucose. The high transport efficiency and high specificity make Aquaporin Z ideal for industrial application like water purification. Engineers have already taken advantage of this to make Aquaporin-incorporated synthetic membranes for water filtration and generation of salinity energy. Despite all the progresses, difficulties still remain in Aquaporin-based technologies, such as in saline and high pressure conditions. This study aims to investigate those problems with a computational approach. [3rd Award]