Edward O’Brien

Professor of Chemistry

Edward O’Brien

Research Summary

Developing and applying Physical Bioinformatic techniques to measure rates of translation transcriptome-wide and their molecular origins as relates to fundamental biology and disease.

Huck Graduate Students

Huck Affiliations

Most Recent Publications

Synonymous Mutations Can Alter Protein Dimerization Through Localized Interface Misfolding Involving Self-entanglements

Pham Dang Lan, Daniel Allen Nissley, Ian Sitarik, Quyen V. Vu, Yang Jiang, Philip To, Yingzi Xia, Stephen D. Fried, Mai Suan Li, Edward P. O'Brien, 2024, Journal of Molecular Biology

Non-covalent Lasso Entanglements in Folded Proteins: Prevalence, Functional Implications, and Evolutionary Significance

Viraj Rana, Ian Sitarik, Justin Petucci, Yang Jiang, Hyebin Song, Edward P. O'Brien, 2024, Journal of Molecular Biology

It is theoretically possible to avoid misfolding into non-covalent lasso entanglements using small molecule drugs

Yang Jiang, Charlotte M. Deane, Garrett M. Morris, Edward P. O’Brien, 2024, PLoS Computational Biology

Deciphering the free energy landscapes of SARS-CoV-2 wild type and Omicron variant interacting with human ACE2

Pham Dang Lan, Daniel A. Nissley, Edward P. O’Brien, Toan T. Nguyen, Mai Suan Li, 2024, Journal of Chemical Physics

How soluble misfolded proteins bypass chaperones at the molecular level

Ritaban Halder, Daniel A. Nissley, Ian Sitarik, Yang Jiang, Yiyun Rao, Quyen V. Vu, Mai Suan Li, Justin Pritchard, Edward P. O’Brien, 2023, Nature Communications

Incorporating mutational heterogeneity to identify genes that are enriched for synonymous mutations in cancer

Yiyun Rao, Nabeel Ahmed, Justin Pritchard, Edward P. O’Brien, 2023, BMC Bioinformatics

Is Posttranslational Folding More Efficient Than Refolding from a Denatured State: A Computational Study

Quyen V. Vu, Daniel A. Nissley, Yang Jiang, Edward P. O’Brien, Mai Suan Li, 2023, Journal of Physical Chemistry B on p. 4761-4774

Universal protein misfolding intermediates can bypass the proteostasis network and remain soluble and less functional

Daniel A. Nissley, Yang Jiang, Fabio Trovato, Ian Sitarik, Karthik B. Narayan, Philip To, Yingzi Xia, Stephen D. Fried, Edward P. O’Brien, 2022, Nature Communications

Modeling Ensembles of Enzyme Reaction Pathways with Hi-MSM Reveals the Importance of Accounting for Pathway Diversity

Joseph R. Persichetti, Yang Jiang, Phillip S. Hudson, Edward P. O'Brien, 2022, Journal of Physical Chemistry B on p. 9748-9758

Pulse labeling reveals the tail end of protein folding by proteome profiling

Mang Zhu, Erich R. Kuechler, Ryan W.K. Wong, Gaetano Calabrese, Ian M. Sitarik, Viraj Rana, Nikolay Stoynov, Edward P. O'Brien, Jörg Gsponer, Thibault Mayor, 2022, Cell Reports

Most-Cited Papers

Cotranslational Protein Folding inside the Ribosome Exit Tunnel

Ola B. Nilsson, Rickard Hedman, Jacopo Marino, Stephan Wickles, Lukas Bischoff, Magnus Johansson, Annika Müller-Lucks, Fabio Trovato, Joseph D. Puglisi, Edward P. O'Brien, Roland Beckmann, Gunnar von Heijne, 2015, Cell Reports on p. 1533-1540

Profiling Ssb-Nascent Chain Interactions Reveals Principles of Hsp70-Assisted Folding

Kristina Döring, Nabeel Ahmed, Trine Riemer, Harsha Garadi Suresh, Yevhen Vainshtein, Markus Habich, Jan Riemer, Matthias P. Mayer, Edward P. O'Brien, Günter Kramer, Bernd Bukau, 2017, Cell on p. 298-311.e20

Does SARS-CoV-2 bind to human ACE2 more strongly than does SARS-CoV?

Hoang Linh Nguyen, Pham Dang Lan, Nguyen Quoc Thai, Daniel A. Nissley, Edward P. O'Brien, Mai Suan Li, 2020, Journal of Physical Chemistry B on p. 7336-7347

Understanding the influence of codon translation rates on cotranslational protein folding

Edward P. O'Brien, Prajwal Ciryam, Michele Vendruscolo, Christopher M. Dobson, 2014, Accounts of Chemical Research on p. 1536-1544

Kinetic modelling indicates that fast-translating codons can coordinate cotranslational protein folding by avoiding misfolded intermediates

Edward P. O'brien, Michele Vendruscolo, Christopher M. Dobson, 2014, Nature Communications

Kinetic and structural comparison of a protein’s cotranslational folding and refolding pathways

Avi J. Samelson, Eric Bolin, Shawn M. Costello, Ajeet K. Sharma, Edward P. O’Brien, Susan Marqusee, 2018, Science advances

A chemical kinetic basis for measuring translation initiation and elongation rates from ribosome profiling data

Ajeet K. Sharma, Pietro Sormanni, Nabeel Ahmed, Prajwal Ciryam, Ulrike A. Friedrich, Günter Kramer, Edward P. O'Brien, 2019, PLoS Computational Biology

Non-equilibrium coupling of protein structure and function to translation–elongation kinetics

Ajeet K. Sharma, Edward P. O'Brien, 2018, Current Opinion in Structural Biology on p. 94-103

Timing is everything: Unifying Codon translation rates and nascent proteome behavior

Daniel A. Nissley, Edward P. Obrien, 2014, Journal of the American Chemical Society on p. 17892-17898

How synonymous mutations alter enzyme structure and function over long timescales

Y Jiang, Syam Neti, Ian Sitarik, P Pradhan, Philip To, Yingzi Xia, Stephen Fried, Squire J. Booker, Edward P. O’Brien, 2022, Nature Chemistry on p. 308-+