The Blaine Mooers Lab
Located at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences in Oklahoma City since 2006.
This is the home page of the MooersLab site on GitHub.
Research Interests
The Mooers lab focuses on studying the role of RNA structure in RNA editing in the mitochondrion of trypanosomes. This byzantine and inefficient biochemical pathway changes over 2400 sites in only 12 mRNA transcripts. The editing is carried out under the direction of about 250 guide RNAs. The function of about 1500 additional guide RNAs remains unclear. This system is not found in humans, so it is a drug target.
Our principal method is biomolecular crystallography. The workflow from crystals to diffraction data to electron density maps and to the final crystal structure is shown below.
Secondary methods include small-angle X-ray scattering, molecular dynamics simulations, and virtual drug docking.
We have access to a local X-ray source for screening crystals. We are also heavy users of synchrotron radiation at SSRL and sometimes at APS and NSLSII.
Dr Mooers serves on the SSRL User Executive Committee, which organizes a fascinating user meeting every year. He co-chaired a workshop on “Machine Learning in the Structural Sciences” at the 2020 meeting.
We also work on advancing the methodology of biomolecular crystallography. Recent achievements include the ab initio direct methods structure determination of the largest nucleic acid to date. This achievement was made in spite of the presence of two orders of translational pseudosymmetry, which hindered structure determination. This work required extensive supercomputer use, especially the trials starting from random phases that were required to obtain a meaningful sample size. We use remotely the Schooner supercomputer that is run by OU Supercomputing Center for Education & Research (OSCER) at the University of Oklahoma in Norman 20 miles to the south. We also use remotely the Pete supercomputer at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater 80 miles to the north.
Our other area of interest that is computationally intensive is the structure-based drug design targeting RNAs in our trypanosome work and proteins important in RNA editing, influenza, and cancer. The protein work is done in collaboration with colleagues at OUHSC and Texas A&M University. We also develop software tools to ease the production of molecular graphics images with PyMOL.
In summary, our work is a blend of wet-bench and computer methods that uses a combination of little science and big science tools. This is because the methods of structural biology are at the intersection of biology, chemistry, computer science, and physics.
Research products
- MyNCBI Bibliography
- Google Scholar Bibliography
- Kudos list of publications
- Structures in the Protein Data Bank
Lab members, July 2015
Left to right: Afzal Shakir, Akila Venkataramany, Karisa Hughes, Shelly Gulati, Blaine Mooers, Cheidza Kanyumbu, Barat Venkataramany
Lab members, August 2017
Left to right: Cheidza Kanyumbu, Vicki Jones, Blaine Mooers, Shelly Gulati, Afzal Shakir
Lab members, July 2018
Left to right: Blaine Mooers, Francis Acquah, Brittany Schnable, Shelly Gulati, Jakob Lynn, Afzal Shakir