Tatsuya Sawasaki

Protein Synthesis in Test Tube

細胞を使わずにタンパク質をつくるタンパク質の無細胞合成法とは,生体の遺伝情報発現系を人工容器内に取りそろえ,高品質タンパク質を試験管内で鋳型合成しようとするものである。この方法では,生命体の生理学的制約を受けないので,遺伝子からのタンパク質合成のハイスループット化が可能となり,さらに合成可能なアミノ酸配列種を劇的に拡大できるものと期待できる。

Highly Productive Plant Continuous Cell-Free System

The development of a system capable of synthesizing any desired protein on a preparative scale is one of the most important endeavors in biotechnology today. Three strategies are currently being used: chemical synthesis, in vivo expression, and cell-free protein synthesis. The first two methods have severe limitations: chemical synthesis is not feasible for the synthesis of long peptides because of low yield, and in vivo expression can produce only those proteins that do not affect the physiology of the host cell [1–3]. Cell-free translation systems, in contrast, can synthesize proteins with high speed and accuracy, approaching in vivo rates [4–5], and they can express proteins that would interfere with cell physiology. However, they are relatively inefficient because of their instability[6].