Designing miniature enzyme that can degrade amyloid fibrils

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26288079
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Bio-related chemistry
• Research Institution: Kobe University
• Principal Investigator: Tamura Atsuo 神戸大学, 理学(系)研究科(研究院), 准教授 (90273797)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: アミロイド / 酵素 / ペプチド / 人工設計 / アルツハイマー / ナノバイオ / ナノファイバー / 蛋白質

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Amyloidosis has been a serious problem in the aging society. To remedy amyloidosis, the most effective way is to hydrolyze amyloid fibrils. We thus tried to design short peptides having hydrolysis activity against amyloid fibrils. As a strategy for the design, we made the peptide to have the catalytic triad composed of histidine, aspartic acid and serine. Based on the strategy, we synthesized 9 peptides named me1-9. It has been shown that me5 takes the alpha-helical conformation and can hydrolyze amyloid fibrils. We tried to hydrolyze variety of amyloids: beta lactoglobulin, insulin, amyloid beta40, amyloid beta42 and beta 2 microglobulin. It is concluded that the peptide me5 can be regarded as a hydrolase which is capable of hydrolyzing the amyloid fibrils.

Free Research Field

生体分子化学