Proteins are the central determinants that regulate biochemical events in cells. We aim to understand structure and functional relationship of the proteins involved in the biochemical processes, mainly by employing x-ray crystallography for visualizing structural features of proteins at atomic resolution, and other biochemical and biophysical methods for characterizing functional aspects of proteins. The structure-function information obtained thus provides a platform for the basic biochemical researches as well as biotechnology, including a structure-based drug design. Currently, we are carrying out two major projects.
1. Nucleotide/nucleoside catabolism in plants
There are growing bioinformatic and biochemical evidences for the presence of enzymes that involve in purine catabolism in plants. Unlike purine biosynthesis, details are still unknown on the degradation pathway of purine nucleotide or nucleoside in plants. Therefore, our structural study on the enzymes in plant purine catabolism would illuminate structural features of purine catabolic enzymes recently identified. Currently, we are collaborating with Prof. Witte’s group, a plant molecular biologist in Leibniz Universität Hannover of Germany.
2. Bacterial phytopathogenesis
Another topic is structural analysis of the proteins involved in bacterial phytopathogenesis. We aim to understand the molecular basis of proteins in these unique processes.