Professor Chikashi Toyoshima of the Center for High-Difficulty Protein Three-dimensional Structure Analysis, Institute of Molecular Cell Biology, University of Tokyo visualized the behavior of the interaction between phospholipids and membrane proteins that make up biological membranes for the first time in the world.This achievement was published in the American scientific journal "Nature" on May 2017, 5.
The cells of our body are partitioned by biological membranes (phospholipid bilayers).Membrane proteins such as calcium pumps are embedded in biological membranes to capture extracellular information and transmit it into the cell.Since most drugs target membrane proteins, the three-dimensional structural analysis of membrane proteins and the accumulation of knowledge on structural changes are extremely important issues in the field of drug discovery. With the advancement of X-war crystal structure analysis technology and equipment, many structural decisions of membrane proteins, which were said to be difficult, have come to be done. It was unclear whether it would affect the expression of function.
Therefore, Director Toshima and his colleagues developed a method called "X-ray solvent contrast modulation method" and succeeded in resolving membrane proteins and the biological membranes surrounding them, and clarified the close cooperation between the two.These findings will greatly contribute to the understanding of the structure and functional expression of other membrane proteins, and are expected to be a breakthrough in drug discovery.
Paper information:[Nature] Protein-phospholipid interplay revealed with crystals of a calcium pump
