Accelerated adaptive bacterial evolution by ribosome engineering

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K20453
• Project/Area Number (Other): 19H05538 (2019)
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Pioneering)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund (2020); Single-year Grants (2019)
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 38:Agricultural chemistry and related fields
• Research Institution: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
• Principal Investigator: Miyazaki kentaro 国立研究開発法人産業技術総合研究所, 生命工学領域, 研究グループ長 (60344123)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-06-28 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: リボソーム / 温度適応

Outline of Final Research Achievements

With the goal of developing technologies for accelerated environmental adaptation of organisms, we focused on "how to utilize genomes". Specifically, by modifying the ribosome (especially 16S rRNA) of the thermophilic bacterium Thermus thermophilus, they obtained a mutant strain that can grow at low temperatures where wild strains cannot. 16S rRNA is a highly conservative molecule and is considered the identity of a species. However, the artificial modification of 16S rRNA is thought to have achieved evolution by a mechanism completely different from the conventional evolution based on the accumulation of genomic point mutations.

Free Research Field

生物工学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

従来型のゲノムへの変異の蓄積による段階的な進化ではなく、遺伝子の発現プロファイルを変えるという新たな進化様式による生物の適応進化を示すことに成功した。本方法は、リボソームの進化的保守性という既成概念と異なる事実の発見に基づいている。