Interview : Professor Keiichi Namba - Cryo-electron microscopy unveils the mysteries of life by investigating various molecular structures in the "deep freeze".

Keiichi Namba
Professor at the Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University.INTERVIEW 07

Proteins constitute all living organisms and are responsible for a plethora of functions, such as immunity, metabolism, cerebral function and motility. Professor Keiichi Namba, who leads the Protonic NanoMachine Group of the Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences in Osaka University is interested in the remarkable mechanisms underlying these functions and is actively seeking to unveil their secrets by studying the three-dimensional (3D) structures of biological molecules.

The human body is composed of approximately 100,000 types of different proteins. Each of them has a unique role such as forming body tissues, catalyzing metabolism, exchanging nutrients across a cell membrane, or destroying foreign substances. These functions constitute some of the vital activities of our body.

'Proteins are a sort of nanomachines functioning within a living body. I'm immensely interested in what roles such nanomachines play and how they act,' says Professor Namba. For over 40 years, prof. Namba has been engaged in research on revealing protein functions from their structures.

Protein is a linear polymer of hundreds or thousands of amino acids. There are only 20 different amino acids that constitute proteins, except for some special amino acids. Thus, different combinations of these amino acids in different sequences form 100,000 different kinds of proteins. The phrase 'a linear polymer' may conjure an image of a flexible chain. However, the structure is completely different from a chain in that each protein has a distinct 3D structure. In fact, a long chain of amino acids is folded into complex structures, and these structures are identical among proteins of the same kind; the structure folds at exactly the same point and at exactly the same angle. However, such folds can vary sometimes, and interestingly, the same molecular structures, but with different 3D structures, can exhibit completely different properties and exert distinct functions. For instance, the source of the BSE trouble that caused panic in the food industry in the early 2000s is said to be a protein called prion, neither a virus nor a chemical agent. Surprisingly, prions are indigenous to human and bovine brains. These prions differed from the abnormal ones that caused BSE only in some part of their 3D structure. Thus, to identify the functions of proteins, it is necessary not only to understand their molecular structures by using analytical equipment and method but also to observe their 3D structures in detail.

Prof. Namba is one of the pioneers in research on the 3D structures of biological molecules. He is particularly interested in a group of proteins that are called molecular motors. They are called motors because they exhibit rotary or linear motions similar to man-made motors. For example, human muscle is formed of myofibrilla, which are mainly composed of proteins actin and myosin assembled in filament forms, and linear motions of these protein filaments cause contraction of muscle. Resembling a man-made rotary motor more closely is the bacterial flagellar motor, which rotates a long, tail-like helical filament called the flagellum as a propeller to drive bacterial cell motility in viscous environments. Escherichia coli and Salmonella have several flagella, which are bundled to produce thrust, much like a screw. However, the structures of molecular motors were difficult to visualize for a long time.

Prof. Namba became obsessed with the mystery and started a series of research studies to reveal the 3D structures of these molecular motors. The flagellar motor is composed of about 30 different proteins that form substructures, such as rotor, stator and bushing, and the structure closely resembles that of generic electric motors. Muscle fibers are made of interdigitated bundles of actin and myosin filaments forming an extremely price hexagonal lattice. Industrial motors are said to be one of the greatest human inventions, but the above findings suggest that this notion may be an arrogant presumption.

Coordinated motions of these molecular motors require energy. Although it was known that hydrogen ions flow through the stator channels of the flagellar motor by the electrochemical potential gradient across the cell membrane and that ATP hydrolysis by actomyosin is the energy source for muscle contraction, their high energy efficiency was enigmatic. It was argued that the energy of the thermal Brownian motion may be involved, but the mechanisms as how it is used were unknown. Heat sources provide the energy for atomic and molecular fluctuations, but when an object is considered at the atomic level, atoms and molecules move in arbitrary directions at arbitrary speeds.

It was thought that even molecular motors could not produce thrust in a certain direction via the heat-induced random motions of molecules and atoms. Yet, they actually move in one direction. Therefore, there exists a mechanism that rectifies the random motions.

Recently, Prof. Namba has come much closer to the answer. He discovered that the actomyosin in muscle fibers is structured like a ratchet that allows a preferred motion in one direction, but not in the other. Such a sophisticated system is built of protein molecules with distinctly asymmetric and dynamic 3D structures.

Prof. Namba believes that the 3D structure of not only proteins but also any of the other biomolecular complexes, including lipids and nucleic acids, will be visualized in 5 years.

An especially important application is the analysis of membrane proteins on cell surfaces. These proteins are the target of actions of pharmaceutical reagents, and their 3D structural analysis will help reveal the mechanisms underlying their molecular function, dramatically improve therapy outcomes, and make possible the development of drugs with no side effects.

In the future, there may even be a movement toward the industrial applications of biological molecular motors, such as super energy-saving machines that require a minimal power source and operate using ambient heat as the primary energy source. This paradoxical notion could defy the long-held belief about machinery and engineering.

Although we are still a long way from realizing such inventions, their realization may prove to lie just around the corner.

• PROFILE

  After completing the doctoral course at the Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, he was appointed as Research　Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Research Associate at two universities in the U.S., and Group Leader of the Research Development Corporation of Japan (current Japan Science and Technology Agency). He then assumed the position of Research Director at the International Institute for Advanced Research of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. in 1992. He has been in the present position since 2002. He has specialized in the field of biophysics as well as the analysis of structures and functions of biomolecular complexes, such as molecular motors.