Searching ionophores for collecting rare earth elements and cleaning up environmental pollution

• Project/Area Number: 25660085
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Applied biochemistry
• Research Institution: Institute of Physical and Chemical Research
• Principal Investigator: UEKI Masashi 国立研究開発法人理化学研究所, 伊藤ナノ医工学研究室, 専任研究員 (90312264)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 2016)
• Budget Amount: ¥4,030,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥930,000); Fiscal Year 2015: ¥910,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥210,000); Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,950,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥450,000); Fiscal Year 2013: ¥1,170,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥270,000)
• Keywords: 微生物代謝産物 / セシウム / イオノフォア / 環境浄化

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Ionophores are small organic molecules produced by microorganisms, and can bind to specific metal ions to form complexes. The structures of ionophores are inextricably linked with the diameter of metal ion, so the specificity of binding to metal ion is very high. Utilizing ionophores, we can effectively collect rare earth elements from various environmental sources. This project mainly focused on searching ionophores, especially specific to Cs, to clean up environmental pollution.
I have screened about 5000 extracts of microorganisms. Two microorganisms were seemed to produce the targeted molecules which might bind to Cs ion, and I tried to identify the active principles. However, the principles could not be determined because their productivities were unstable. Moreover, it was found that the principles purified roughly did not show any affinities to Cs ions.

Research Products

• [Journal Article] Serum-free culturing of human mesenchymal stem cells with immobilized growth factors (2017)
  • Author(s): Hongli Mao, Seong Min Kim, Masashi Ueki, and Yoshihiro Ito
  • Journal Title: J. Mater. Chem. B Volume: 5 Issue: 5 Pages: 928-934
  • DOI: 10.1039/c6tb02867e
  • Peer Reviewed / Acknowledgement Compliant
• [Journal Article] Characterization of giant modular PKSs provides insight into genetic mechanism for structural diversification of aminopolyol polyketides (2017)
  • Author(s): Zhang, L., Hashimoto, T., Qin, B., Hashimoto, J., Kozone, I., Kawahara, T., Okada, M., Awakawa, T., Ito, T., Asakawa, Y., Ueki, M., Takahashi, S., Osada, H., Wakimoto, T., Ikeda, H., Shin-ya, K., Abe, I.
  • Journal Title: Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Volume: 56 Issue: 7 Pages: 1740-1745
  • DOI: 10.1002/anie.201611371
  • Peer Reviewed / Open Access / Acknowledgement Compliant
• [Journal Article] Identification of novel secreted fatty acids that regulate nitrogen catabolite repression in fission yeast. (2016)
  • Author(s): Sun X, Hirai G, Ueki M, Hirota H, Wang Q, Hongo Y, Nakamura T, Hitora Y, Takahashi H, Sodeoka M, Osada H, Hamamoto M, Yoshida M, Yashiroda Y.
  • Journal Title: Scientific Reports Volume: 6 Issue: 1 Pages: 20856-20856
  • DOI: 10.1038/srep20856
  • Peer Reviewed / Open Access / Acknowledgement Compliant