[WS8] 発動分子科学：生体分子モーターから、人工分子機械まで

[WS8-03] 人工タンパク質針の動的機能設計

^○上野 隆史 (東工大・生命理工)

In recent years, elucidation of the dynamic behavior of natural protein assemblies has attracted significant attention. Although attempts have been made to synthesize functionalized proteins based on these studies, there have been few reports on observations of molecular motion. We report the direct observation of the dynamic behavior of an artificial protein needle (PN), which was designed based on the structure of a component protein from bacteriophage T4. Molecular needles are common in other bacteriophages and used in the transmembrane reaction in the infection process. Single-molecule observations of high-speed atomic force microscopy (HS-AFM) revealed that the tip of PN stabilizes the intermolecular interactions on a mica surface. These results show that rationally-designed protein assemblies derived from natural bio-nano molecules can provide new nanomaterials with useful functionality.