Construction of Protein Supramolecular Architectures by Etching of Protein Crystals

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26620130
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Bio-related chemistry
• Research Institution: Tokyo Institute of Technology
• Principal Investigator: ABE Satoshi 東京工業大学, 生命理工学研究科, 助教 (40508595)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: タンパク質結晶 / 多角体 / 超分子構造体 / ジスルフィド結合

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Protein supramolecular architectures, such as cages, rings, tubes and two-dimensional arrays, have attracted a great deal of interest in bio-nanotechnology and material sciences. In this research, we demonstrated novel method to construct protein supramolecular architectures using protein crystals, which have highly ordered 3D arrangements of protein molecules. We used polyhedra crystals, in vivo protein crystals to construct nanoacup structures. We designed polyhedra mutants, in which cysteine residues were introduced on the interfaces of monomer to form disulfide bonds within the crystals, for construction of nanocap structures. We succeeded in construction of the nanocap structures by oxidation and dissolution of the crystals. The nanocup structures were characterized by X-ray structure analysis, MALDI TOF-MS and SDS-PAGE. This method can be applied to various protein crystals to construct protein architectures.

Free Research Field

生体機能関連化学