| 今後の研究の推進方策 |
1) Antimicrobial effect of BCR: We found an antimicrobial effect for several BCRs against E. coli. In this period we will collect more detailed data, for example, concentration dependency, and ion strength dependency. We also inspect the effect against other microbes, i.e., antimicrobial spectrum.
2) Fine-scale imaging: Buchnera are localized within vesicles produced aphid cells. Our hypothesis is that BCRs are targeted to Buchnera through the secretory pathway. We intend to image BCR peptide localization in fixed and living aphid tissues and also in E. coli cultures. A standard strategy to study protein localization is using immunohistochemistry with antibodies specific to proteins. We will also develop fluorescence-labeled BCRs that can be used for imaging studies and other applications. Ultimately, we hope that super-resolution microscopy will allow us to determine whether BCRs are targeted to the symbiosomal membrane surrounding Buchnera, whether they attach to specific parts of the bacterial membrane (e.g. cell division plane), and whether they enter into the bacteria.
3) Structural biology of BCRs: Understanding the structural basis of BCR activity is important for two reasons. First, information of 3D structure of BCR is essential to understand how they interact with bacteria and how they function. Second, the BCR family has no sequence similarity with any proteins of other species, but it is possible that they share some structural similarity with other proteins. We will attempt to crystallize BCRs so that the structures may be solved by crystallographic methods.
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