Director Yaeta ENDO, Ph.D.

Many different protein molecules that have specific functions support activities of life. Human intellect and emotion, for example, are created by and could be ascribed to molecular and cellular interactions involving proteins as central components. In fact, proteins constitute the material bases of life: if you compare a living organism to a mechanical machine, each protein molecule corresponds to an elemental semiconductor device or a gear wheel that controls or supports the movement of the machine. A typical protein molecule is a chain of several hundred amino acids assembled according to the DNA sequence information in the corresponding gene, and there are 20 different amino acids that constitute proteins.

  The genome of a living organism is a whole body of the genes including the information for the whole body of the functional proteins in the organism. The genome DNA sequences of more than 800 species have been analyzed since the completion of the human genome project. However, only a very small fraction of the information in the genome sequence has been understood: in fact, the genome sequence only suggest the amino acid sequences of the encoded proteins, which correspond to the spelling of each word but not the meaning of the sentences that constitute a book. （: in fact, the genome sequence corresponds merely to the index page of a catalog of the parts constituting a machine without specification indicating how the parts function and how they are assembled and organized into the machine.）In order to utilize the genome information in life sciences and industry, it is necessary to analyze the functions and structures of the encoded proteins, and this requires production and preparation of the proteins. However, protein preparation has been a bottleneck of life science because it is difficult in general.

  The cell-free protein synthesis system contains everything involving in cellular protein synthesis and catalyzes the assembly of the amino acids according to the direction by an arbitrary gene sequence. Although it has been prepared from many kinds of cells since the earliest days of molecular biology, it had been too unstable and inefficient to be used for protein production. We have solved the problem of instability associated with the cell-free system from wheat embryos on the basis of a series of original studies on toxins. The stable and efficient cell-free protein synthesis system has been further combined with some newly developed technologies, and a world-standard methodology for protein production has been established, which facilitate highly parallel production and massive production of high-quality proteins. This has been applied to the construction of protein libraries based on the genome information and the development of a versatile method for screening of protein interactions, which have been demonstrated to be useful for basic and applied studies on protein functions and structures, cellular protein interaction networks, infectious diseases such as AIDS and malaria, cancer, autoimmune diseases, and lifestyle diseases.

  Cell-Free Science and Technology Research Center (CSTRC) of Ehime University was established in April, 2003, in order to creat a field of "cell-free scienc and technology" based on the protein synthesis methodology. The Center has one basic research division and four application divisions. Along with Ehime Proteo-Medicine Research Center, we are leading unique and creative researches, collaborating with researchers from universities and institutes all around the world and from local governments.