| 研究実績の概要 |
SWEETs play essential roles through the transport activity for sucrose and/or glucose. In addition to sugars, SWEETs can transport gibberellic acid (GA). Sugars and phytohormones are essential to the fundamental processes of plant development and growth. It has remained unclear, however, which spectrum of substrates SWEETs can transport, and how SWEETs can transport substrates. To understand the molecular mechanisms of substrate selectivity of plant transporters, we studied the substrate recognition of SWEETs using molecular docking and molecular dynamics. The docking studies have revealed residues of AtSWEET13 involved in binding GA and/or sucrose. In this fiscal year, through the in-cell transporter activity assay using mammalian cells, we identified the residue which is required for substrate selectivity. Currently, we are investigating how the identified residues of transporter function in plants.
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| 今後の研究の推進方策 |
The substrate selectivity of transporters is critical to accomplish the complex systems in biological processes. However, the molecular mechanisms of the substrate selectivity of transporters have not been fully elucidated. SWEETs play essential roles through the transport activity for sucrose and/or glucose. In addition to sugars, SWEETs can transport GA. The docking studies and in-cell transporter activity assay have revealed residues of AtSWEET13 involved in binding GA and sucrose. We will investigate how the residues we identified as being involved in substrate selectivity function in plants. In addition, we have established a screening system to identify small molecules selectively inhibiting the SWEET transport activity. The screen is being performed in 96-well format with 70,000 compounds from ITbM chemical library.
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