2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Functional polypeptides encoded by bacterial ribosomal RNA in response to catastrophic stress

Research Project

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Project/Area Number	19K22240
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Review Section	Medium-sized Section 37:Biomolecular chemistry and related fields
Research Institution	Hokkaido University
Principal Investigator	Sakaguchi Kazuyasu 北海道大学, 理学研究院, 教授 (00315053)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	鎌田瑠泉北海道大学, 理学研究院, 准教授 (40750881)
Project Period (FY)	2019-06-28 – 2022-03-31
Keywords	ポリペプチド / ストレス / 翻訳 / コーディング / 抗菌活性 / r-Peptide仮説
Outline of Final Research Achievements	In recent years, antibiotics have become increasingly important in medicine and society. In this study, we investigated the identification and function of polypeptides derived from rRNA sequences (r-peptides) to elucidate the "r-Peptide" hypothesis that prokaryotic rRNA, which is supposed to be a non-protein-coding RNA, intrinsically encodes genetic information, and is translated into polypeptides under special circumstances such as when survival is threatened. The identification and function of rRNA-derived polypeptides (r-peptides) were studied to elucidate the "r-Peptide" hypothesis. Bioinformatics analysis showed that the r-peptides had specific anti-bacterial activity and provided a mechanistic model for their action. In addition, mass spectrometry analysis suggested the expression of oxidized form of the r-peptide in the presence of the antibiotics.
Free Research Field	生体分子化学
Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements	本研究の成果は、大腸菌の危機状態対応への進化の解明として大きな意味を持つばかりでなく、医療に対しても極めて重要な意義を持つ。本研究により、原核生物の危機回避メカニズムが解明され、この新規メカニズムに基づいた、全く新しいタイプの抗生物質の開発への展開も期待される。さらに、本研究は、タンパク質をコードしないノンコーディングRNAとされているrRNAが、特定の条件下で翻訳され機能性ポリペプチドを発現するという、生命科学・分子生物学のセントラルドグマの拡張も示すこととなった。