All organisms have the specific transition metals, which are the essential elements to maintain their lives, although these metal contents are quite low in the body. Such indispensable functions of the transition metals are well described by the words of Prof. Negishi, one of the Nobel Laureates in Chemistry 2010, who have developed new fields of the organic chemistry utilizing the transition metals,
“Magical Power of d-Block Transition Metals”.
It should be noted here that primitive life had already known the "Magical Power" of metals and they have utilized it for the evolution. It is no exaggeration that life is maintained by the "Magical Power" of these transition metals, “biometals”, and the functional and structural characterization of “biometals” and proteins containing “biometals” will, therefore, pave the way for the comprehensive understanding of biological processes on the molecular level and contribute to reveal the molecular basis of life.
In several essential biometals, we have focused on iron, which is the most abundant transition metals and is utilized as the active centers for various kinds of matalloproteins essential for many biological processes. The major research projects in our laboratory are as follows:
1. Molecular Regulation System for Iron Metabolism in Cells (Fig. 1)
2. Regulation Mechanism of Electron Transfer in Respiratory Chain (Fig. 2)
3. Structural and Functional Characterization of Nonodisc-inserted Membrane-bound Proteins (Fig. 3)
4. Molecular Mechanism for Protein Folding Utilizing Novel Physico-chemical Approaches (Fig. 4)
Based on these studies in “biometals” and biometal-containing proteins, biometals have been found to dynamically and systematically function as key elements in many crucial biological systems, and it has become evident that failure of the systems results in severe dysfunction of organs, which allows us to expect creation of new therapies and drug by controlling the "Magical Power".