Kostantina Karagianni

Kostantina Karagianni

PhD Student

Thesis Title: Solving the mysteries of human N-glycosylation: Role of RFT1 in the lipid-oligosaccharide translocation.

Primary Theme:  Next Generation Chemistry

Secondary Theme: Structural Biology

Franklin Supervisors: Professor Ben Davis, Dr Liang Wu, Dr Karina Pombo-Garcia

University: University of Oxford

University Supervisor: Tin Dong

Protein N-glycosylation is an important post translational modification (PTM) and involves the transfer of the oligosaccharide, made during the lipid-linked oligosaccharide (LLO) pathway, to an asparagine residue of a nascent protein. A key step of LLO pathway is the translocation of the lipid-oligosaccharide from the cytoplasmic to the luminal side of the Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and it is proposed that Rft1 is the flippase responsible for the translocation. Human RFT1 and the mechanism by which it flips the DLO-Man5 is an understudied protein due to the uncertainty of its role in the pathway. The aim of this project is to understand how the flipping of the DLO-Man5 occurs with a focus on the role of Rft1 in the LLO pathway.

Kostantina graduated with a BSc in Biochemistry at University of Bath in 2023. She also completed a professional placement year at UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) as part of the Pathogen Immunology group where she worked on quantitative and qualitative analysis of the immunity proteins of the nasal lining fluid. On her final year project, Kostantina worked on the effect of mutations in the efflux pump systems have an impact on bacterial susceptibility which further developed her interest in protein structure and protein-protein interaction discovery.

Read more about Kostantina’s work here.