In my attempt to compose a prion sequence, I chose the Octapeptide Repeat Region
because it is somewhat mysterious in its repetitive pattern. Compared to rest of the
sequences that are appear very complex and erratic, I wanted to represent the
octapeptide uniformly 4×4 which was a response to its geometric name repeating
the eight amino acid sequence. Thus, I included to render this geometric function
through the sound of a synthetic instrument (synthaltered keyboard) that I used to compose in Mac OSX Garagband programme.
PQGGGGWGQ PHGGGWGQ PHGGGWGQ PHGGGWGQ PHGGGWGQ
CDGGGGAGF CEGGGAGF CEGGGAGF CEGGGAGF CEGGGAGF
The musical piece itself is very basic, but after having spent the
time with revising biochemistry, and reflecting on the information from last class,
the way I see the prion structure when I hear the piece is reminiscent of this learning process. I think I would like to go deeper scientifically, mathematically, and musically with the composition in the future.
The slow pace of the piece reflects the association with the length of the
octapeptide: in this case I wanted to make a connection to neurodegenerative symptoms. Within a given species, repeats at the amino acid level are not always perfect. In addition, it has been researched that mutations with extra repeats can cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CDJ).