Extraction and application of structural and functional elements of proteins.

如今，人工工程蛋白质被用于各种生命科学领域。此外，工程蛋白质被认为是下一代药物的候选者之一。然而，人工蛋白质的合理设计的有效方法尚未开发。利用全面的丙氨酸插入突变分析，我们已经揭示了蛋白质中的几个后续氨基酸残基的区域，命名为“元件”，负责功能和结构。在本研究中，我们建立了一个工作假设，即这些元素在蛋白质中起着构建块的作用，并对其进行了验证。结果，通过将一种蛋白质中的元素植入到另一种具有不同功能的蛋白质中，我们成功地按照我们的意愿修改了蛋白质的功能。这一成功意味着这些元件作为一种构建模块来介导特定的蛋白质功能，并将使我们能够合理地设计人工蛋白质。

Nowadays, artificially engineered proteins are utilized in various life science areas. In addition, engineered proteins are known to be one of promised candidates for next generation drugs. However, effective methods for rational design of artificial proteins have not been developed. Using comprehensive alanine insertion mutation analysis, we have revealed that regions of several subsequent amino acid residues in a protein, named as "Element", are responsible for the function and structure. In this work, we established a working hypothesis that those elements act as building blocks in the proteins, and verified it. In the result, by implanting the elements from a protein into another protein with a different function, we successfully modified the protein function as we wish. This success implies that the elements act as a kind of building-block to mediate a particular protein function, and will enable us to design an artificial protein rationally.