본문으로 바로가기

기술동향

Proteins by Design: Penn Biochemists Create New Protein from Scratch

  • 등록일2009-03-31
  • 조회수10976
  • 분류기술동향
Proteins by Design: Penn Biochemists Create
New Protein from Scratch
 
 
Approach could one day be used to make artificial blood
 
    PHILADELPHIA ? No doubt proteins are complex. Most are “large” and full of interdependent branches, pockets and bends in their final folded structure. This complexity frustrates biochemists and protein engineers seeking to understand protein structure and function in order to reproduce or create new uses for these natural molecules to fight diseases or for use in industry.
 

From-scratch design of an oxygen transport protein buries hemes in a bundle of protein columns (alpha helices) linked by loops into a candelabra geometry.
 
Using design and engineering principles learned from nature, a team of biochemists from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have built ? from scratch ? a completely new type of protein. This protein can transport oxygen, akin to human neuroglobin, a molecule that carries oxygen in the brain and peripheral nervous system. Some day this approach could be used to make artificial blood for use on the battle field or by emergency-care professionals. Their findings appear in the most recent issue of Nature.
 
“This is quite a different way of making novel proteins than the rest of the world,” says senior author P. Leslie Dutton, PhD, Eldridge Reeves Johnson Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics. “We’ve created an unusually simple and relatively small protein that has a function, which is to carry oxygen. No one else has ever done this before.”

“Our aim is to design new proteins from principles we discover studying natural proteins,” explains co-author Christopher C. Moser, PhD, Associate Director of the Johnson Foundation at Penn. “For example, we found that natural proteins are complex and fragile and when we make new proteins we want them to be simple and robust. That’s why we’re not re-engineering a natural protein, but making one from scratch.”....계속
 
 
☞ 자세한 내용은 내용바로가기를 이용하시기 바랍니다.
 
 
 
 

 
목록 스크랩
관련정보

지식

동향

발간물

자료 추천하기

받는 사람 이메일
@
메일 내용