| Budget Amount *help |
¥5,070,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,170,000)
Fiscal Year 2016: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000)
Fiscal Year 2015: ¥1,560,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥360,000)
Fiscal Year 2014: ¥2,210,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥510,000)
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
The mitochondrial calcium uniporter (MCU) complex is a highly-selective calcium channel, and this complex is believed to consist of a pore-forming subunit, MCU, and its regulatory subunits. As yeast cells lack orthologues of the mammalian proteins, the yeast expression system for the mammalian calcium uniporter subunits is useful for investigating their functions. We here established a yeast expression system for the mouse MCU and 7 other subunits. Using this expression system, we analyzed the essential MCU regulator (EMRE), which is a key subunit for Ca2+ uptake but whose functions and structure remain unclear. Deletion of acidic amino acids conserved in EMRE did not significantly affect Ca2+ uptake; thus, EMRE did not have basic properties of ion channels such as ion-selectivity filtration and ion concentration. Meanwhile, the close interaction between MCU and EMRE suggested that EMRE might be a structural factor for opening of the MCU-forming pore.
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