Construction of artificial blue light receptor for synthetic phototaxis of purple photosynthetic bacteria

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K14907
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Applied biochemistry
• Research Institution: Ritsumeikan University
• Principal Investigator: Azai Chihiro 立命館大学, 生命科学部, 助教 (70706564)
• Research Collaborator: SHIMOJI Mamiko
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 走光性 / 鞭毛モーター / LOV / CheA / ヒスチジンキナーゼ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Through the course of this project, we tried to construct a chimera of class I and II histidine kinases (HK) to construct a photoresponsive HK that enable us switch the rotation direction of bacterial flagellar motors by light irradiation. We designed an artificial blue-light receptor protein “YC”, which is a chimera of LOV-HK and CheA, based on homology in their atomic structures. Swarming assay of the YC-expressed E. coli showed acquired phototactic response by the light-dependent autophosphorylation activity of YC. The recombinant YC protein had a photoconvertable flavin cofactor that adducts to the conserved Cys residue of the LOV domain. This is the first successful report for functional fusion of the class I and II HKs.

Free Research Field

光生物学