The Oxford Protein Production Facility-UK

蛋白质是所有活细胞的基本成分。它们包括由特定DNA序列编码的氨基酸链，并折叠成三维结构，这决定了它们的功能，例如作为生物催化剂。因此，了解蛋白质的结构和功能是利用人类基因组测序，特别是许多人类病原体测序产生的信息的关键。对单个蛋白质的了解对许多重要药物的开发作出了重大贡献，例如扎那米韦（流感神经氨酸酶抑制剂）、拉帕替尼（激酶抑制剂）、达若那韦（艾滋病毒蛋白酶抑制剂）。然而，高通量DNA测序继续以远远超过我们破译其功能的速度添加到已知蛋白质的数据库中。因此，加快重组蛋白的生产是缩小蛋白质序列获取与确定其结构和功能之间差距的关键。为了应对这一挑战，牛津蛋白质生产设施将提供基础设施，以支持从原子分辨率（x射线晶体学）到全细胞系统（光学显微镜）的不同长度和时间尺度的蛋白质研究。

Proteins are essential components of all living cells. They comprise chains of amino acids coded for by specific DNA sequences and fold into three dimensional structures, that determine their function, for example as biological catalysts. Therefore, understanding protein structure and function is key to exploiting the information generated from sequencing of the human genome and in particular those of many human pathogens. Knowledge of individual proteins has made a major contribution to the development of a number of important drugs, e.g. Zanamivir (influenza neuraminidase inhibitor), Lapatinib (kinase inhibitor), Darunavir (HIV protease inhibitor). However, high throughput DNA sequencing continues to add to the database of known proteins at a rate that far exceeds our capacity to decipher their function. Therefore, accelerating the production of recombinant proteins is key to closing the gap between the acquisition of protein sequences and the determination of their structure and function. In response to this challenge, the Oxford Protein Production Facility will provide infrastructure to underpin the study of proteins on different length and time scales from atomic resolution (x-ray crystallography) to whole cell systems (optical microscopy).