Targeted Pursuit of Challenging Bioactive Molecules

一种新化学物质的发现常常会引发基础科学的突破。这一优先领域旨在识别控制生物和生理有趣现象的天然关键化合物。尽管这些现象在广泛的科学领域引起了相当大的关注，但主要由于相关化学品的不稳定性和稀缺性，阻碍了对这些现象的生物/生化研究。为了克服它们在分离和表征方面的困难，该领域的研究旨在基于天然产物化学、分子生物学、光谱科学和有机合成的最新技术，开发结构解析和作用模式研究的新方法，包括生物测定。我们在重点领域开展了四类科研工作：A01：瞬态或不稳定的关键生物活性分子A02：极有效的关键生物活性分子A03：与重要生物现象相关的未知分子A04：通过创新方法确定关键分子的结构，项目领域取得了以下显著成果：i)短尾鼩（blarina brevicauda）致死性毒液blarina毒素的分离与鉴定ii)海鞘（Ciona ninteinalis）精子激活与吸引因子（SAAF）的纳米分子级结构分析。通过这个项目，我们总结了在现实领域的精确观察对于寻找重要的关键化合物是非常重要的。

The discovery of a new chemical substance frequently triggers a breakthrough in basic sciences. This priority area aims at identifying natural key compounds that control biologically and physiologically intriguing phenomena. Although such phenomena attract considerable attention in a wide range of scientific fields, biological/biochemical studies of these phenomena are hampered mainly due to the instability and rarity of the relevant chemicals. To overcome difficulties in their isolation and characterization, research in this area is aimed at the development of new methods in structural elucidation and mode of action studies, including bioassays, based on the newest technologies in natural product chemistry, molecular biology, spectroscopic science and organic synthesis.We conducted this scientific research on priority area with four categories as follows : A01 : Key Bioactive Molecules in Transient or Unstable States A02 : Extremely Effective Key Bioactive Molecules A03 : Unknown Molecules Implicated in Important Biological Phenomena A04 : Determination of the Structure of Key Molecules by Innovative Methods Remarkable results in this project area are as follows : i) Isolation and characterization of blarina toxin, a novel mammalian lethal venom from the short-tailed shrew Blarina brevicauda ii) Nano mol-order structure elucidation of SAAF (sperm-activating and attracting factor) isolated from the ascidian Ciona intestinalis.We have summarized through this project that exact observation in the real field are extremely remarkable in pursuit for important key compounds.