Laboratories & Administration Office

Laboratory of Protein Organic Chemistry

member

Director Saburo AIMOTO
Hideo AKUTSU(Guest Professor)
Kousuke MORIKAWA(Visiting Professor)
Associate Professor Toru KAWAKAMI
Instructor Takeshi SATO
Toshiaki HARA
Technical Assistant

Correspondence

Tel 81-6-6879-8601
Fax 81-6-6879-8603
E-mail
URL http://www.protein.osaka-u.ac.jp/organic/english.htm

Research

Our research goal is to develop the methods that enable the synthesis of a wide variety of proteins. To realize such synthesis we are developing chemical methods such as a thioester method and an extended native chemical ligation method. A hybrid method is also being developed in which chemical and biological means are used as the preparation of building blocks. The chemoselective ligation strategies are also being applied to the preparation of site-specifically modified peptides and membrane proteins for use in the analysis of protein-protein interaction.

Current Research Programs

1) General studies on a chemical protein synthesis
2) Synthetic studies of membrane proteins
3) Synthetic studies of histones, and their structural and functional studies
4) Structural and functional studies of membrane proteins


<Fig.1>
A newly developed building block for protein synthesis that
contains an auto-activating unit, a Cys-Pro-OR residue.


<Fig.2>
Preparation of a peptide that contains a transmembrane and
juxtamembrane regionsfor use in the analysis of protein-protein
and protein-lipid bilayer interaction.

References

1. Peptide thioester preparation based on an N-S acyl shift reaction mediated by a thiol ligation auxiliary. Kawakami, T., Sumida, M., Nakamura, K., Vorherr, T., Aimoto, S. (2005) Tetrahedron Lett. 46, 8805-8807.
2. Inhibitors of amyloid toxicity based on β-sheet packing of Aβ40 and Aβ42. Sato, T., Kienlen-Campard, P., Ahmed, M., Liu, W., Li, H., Elliott, J. I., Aimoto, S., Constantinescu, S. N., Octave, J. N., Smith, S. O. (2006) Biochemistry 45, 5503-5516 .
3. Generation of an S-Peptide via an N-S acyl shift reaction in TFA solution. Nakamura, K., Sumida, M., Kawakami, T., Vorherr, T., Aimoto, S. (2006) Bull. Chem. Soc. Jpn. 79, 1773-1780.
4. Peptide ligation using the cysteinyl prolyl ester (CPE) activating unit at the carboxy terminus. Kawakami, T., Aimoto, S. (2007) Chem. Lett. 36, 76-77.
5. Sequential peptide ligation by using a controlled cysteinyl prolyl ester (CPE) autoactivating unit. Kawakami, T., Aimoto, S. (2007) Tetrahedron Lett. 48, 1903-1905.

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