The selective collection of stress granules using nanopipette

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K14707
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Applied biochemistry
• Research Institution: University of Tsukuba
• Principal Investigator: KIM Jundal 筑波大学, 生命領域学際研究センター, 助教 (90570036)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): FUKAMIZU Akiyoshi 筑波大学, 生命領域学際研究センター, 教授 (60199172)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: ストレス顆粒 / ナノピペット

Outline of Final Research Achievements

When cells are under environmental stress, DNA and RNA can be easily damaged, which cause biological disorder. To prevent from several biological disorders, there exist a lot of self-protective systems in cells. In recent years, a stress-responsive self-protective system called stress granule (SG) has been discovered. SG is cytoplasmic aggregation that forms when translation initiation is impaired by stress, and it is considered to play a critical role in regulation of mRNA metabolism and protect RNAs from harmful conditions. However, the identity of SG is poorly understood, because the isolation of SG is extremely difficult. For further analysis, a method that can effectively isolate SG is demanded. Nanopipette is a robotic nanometer-size glass pipette. It can take samples selectively and rapidly in an individual cell, which may meet the requirements for SG isolation. In the present study, we attempted to collect SG using nanopipette, by marking SG with fluorescent protein markers.

Free Research Field

分子生物学