The 144th Annual Meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan (Yokohama)

Organizer: Katsumi Matsuzaki (Grad. Sch. Pharm. Sci., Kyoto Univ.), Akira Otaka (Grad. Sch. Pharm. Sci., Tokushima Univ.)

Elucidation of the structures and functions of proteins is important not only for understanding biological phenomena but also for drug discovery research. Essential technologies for protein research involve mass production of target proteins by recombinant expression or chemical synthesis and their site-specific chemical modification. In addition, in the case of membrane proteins, their solubilization and stabilization are key techniques. A method for incorporating in vitro-modified membrane proteins back into living cells would be a powerful approach for their in-cell analysis.
In this symposium, cutting-edge chemical methods for protein research will be presented and discussed, including the low-cost and efficient protein purification systems using oligosaccharides (by Kato), the peptide modification methods for the generation of artificial proteins (by Otaka), the chemical synthesis of difficult membrane proteins (by Hojo), the delivery of membrane proteins to cell membranes utilizing nanosiscs (by Ikeda), and the development of novel detergents enabling the facile structural and functional analysis of membrane proteins (by Matsuzaki).