Research Director

Yoshikazu Tanaka

Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University
Professor

Outline

X-ray crystallography is one of the most powerful techniques to determine the molecular structure in detail. However, this technique requires obtaining crystal of the target molecule, which frequently hampers successful structure analysis. In the present study, I overcome this issue by utilizing a mega-dalton scale supermolecular protein complex as a framework of crystal lattice. I develop a technique to encapsulate the desired molecule, regardless of the size and property, into the framework supermolecule, and further crystallize the entire molecule. As the X-ray diffraction data of this crystal contain structural information of both the guest molecule and framework, the structure of the target molecule can be determined as well as the framework structure.