抄録
Despite the fact that membrane transport proteins are indispensable for biological activities, they are not well understood due to the lack of sufficient research methods. Membrane transport proteins function under the influence of surrounding lipid molecules and membrane potential with large conformational changes. However, due to the above limitations in research methods, the understanding of the interaction of membrane transport proteins with lipid molecules and their operating mechanisms based on their dynamic behavior is not sufficient. Therefore, although membrane transport is very important in developing microbial cell factories (MCF), there is a lack of understanding especially of exporter proteins, which is one of the bottlenecks in MCF development. Membrane transport also plays an important role in major energy conversion processes in living organisms, such as respiration and photosynthesis. For example, several ion transport proteins that are expressed on thylakoid membranes and involved in photosynthetic activity have been identified. However, some ion transport proteins remain to be identified, while their existence has been suggested.
We aimed to overcome the limitations of research methods in the study of membrane transport proteins by utilizing innovative analytical techniques developed by our own research group, as are below.
(1)Original membrane transport analysis system that enables patch clamp analysis of microorganisms and organelles
(2)High-precision molecular dynamics simulation of membrane transport proteins using originally developed force field
Using analytical methods described above, we have been tackling the following research agenda in basic research on membrane transport proteins for exporter engineering and other applications towards sustainable society as below. (1)Analysis of mechanosensitive channels and their application to microbial membrane transport engineering, (2)Identification of the 5′-IMP exporter protein gene of Corynebacterium stationis and elucidation of the mechanism of improving the exporter protein activity, (3)Elucidation of the dynamic behavior of membrane transport proteins and analysis of their operating mechanisms using high-precision all-atom molecular dynamics simulation, (4)Electrophysiological analysis of thylakoid membrane-localized ion channels and their physiological roles. As a result, we have achieved some unique and valuable results.
