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Conversion of microbial rhodopsins: insights into functionally essential elements and rational protein engineering

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Abstract

Technological progress has enabled the successful application of functional conversion to a variety of biological molecules, such as nucleotides and proteins. Such studies have revealed the functionally essential elements of these engineered molecules, which are difficult to characterize at the level of an individual molecule. The functional conversion of biological molecules has also provided a strategy for their rational and atomistic design. The engineered molecules can be used in studies to improve our understanding of their biological functions and to develop protein-based tools. In this review, we introduce the functional conversion of membrane-embedded photoreceptive retinylidene proteins (also called rhodopsins) and discuss these proteins mainly on the basis of results obtained from our own studies. This information provides insights into the molecular mechanism of light-induced protein functions and their use in optogenetics, a technology which involves the use of light to control biological activities.

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Acknowledgements

Our original publications were supported by a Grant-in-Aid from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science, Technology, Sports and Cultures (KAKENHI) to KI, HK and YS. This work was also supported by JST-CREST and AMED to YS. We thank “DASS Manuscript” (http://www.dass-ms.com/home.html) for the English language review.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama University, Okayama, 700-8530, Japan

    Akimasa Kaneko & Yuki Sudo

  2. Department of Frontier Materials, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Showa-ku, Nagoya, 466-8555, Japan

    Keiichi Inoue & Hideki Kandori

  3. OptoBioTechnology Research Center, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Showa-ku, Nagoya, 466-8555, Japan

    Keiichi Inoue & Hideki Kandori

  4. Precursory Research for Embryonic Science and Technology (PRESTO), Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), 4-1-8 Honcho Kawaguchi, Saitama, 332-0012, Japan

    Keiichi Inoue

  5. Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama University, 1-1-1 Tsushima-naka, Kita-ku, Okayama, 700-8530, Japan

    Keiichi Kojima & Yuki Sudo

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  1. Akimasa Kaneko
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  2. Keiichi Inoue
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  3. Keiichi Kojima
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  4. Hideki Kandori
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  5. Yuki Sudo
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Correspondence to Yuki Sudo.

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Akimasa Kaneko declares that he has no conflict of interest. Keiichi Inoue declares that he has no conflict of interest. Keiichi Kojima declares that he has no conflict of interest. Hideki Kandori declares that he has no conflict of interest. Yuki Sudo declares that he has no conflict of interest.

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Kaneko, A., Inoue, K., Kojima, K. et al. Conversion of microbial rhodopsins: insights into functionally essential elements and rational protein engineering. Biophys Rev 9, 861–876 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12551-017-0335-x

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