Establishment of the new strategy for accurate diagnosis of zinc deficiency

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26660086
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Applied biochemistry
• Research Institution: Kyoto University
• Principal Investigator: Taiho Kambe 京都大学, 生命科学研究科, 准教授 (90303875)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 亜鉛欠乏 / 診断法 / 健康増進 / 超高齢社会

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In general, zinc deficiency is diagnosed by evaluation of serum zinc status. However, serum zinc status is altered by daily fluctuation or during inflammation, which may be a problem in the case that the accurate diagnosis is required for elderly people because they often suffer from various chronic diseases. Because, at present, Japan faces super-aged society at present, establishing the new strategy for accurate diagnosis of zinc deficiency is more important than ever.
In this study, I tried to establish such strategy by generating useful monoclonal antibody to detect proteins/enzymes whose expression is changed in response to zinc status. Moreover, I investigated zinc requiring enzyme activity whose activity was changed during zinc deficiency. I generated one antibody, which nicely detects zinc transporter in zinc-deficient dependent pattern, and one enzyme whose activity shows drastic change in response to zinc deficiency.

Free Research Field

栄養生化学・分子生物学