Scientists have been trying for years to discover the mysteries of the billions of proteins that exist. But the task has been daunting.
Until now.
In collaboration with a Japanese university and company, UW-Madison scientists are developing new technology that may be able to synthesize, or produce, more proteins in less time, speeding up the process of deciphering proteins and their functions. This can lead to a deeper understanding of diseases such as Alzheimer's and \mad cow"" disease that happen when proteins don't work the way they should.
""Making high-quality, folded proteins is the bottleneck to the whole approach,"" said John Markley, UW-Madison biochemistry professor and director of UW-Madison's Center for Eukaryotic Structural Genomics.
Markley and assistant scientist Dmitriy Vinarov are spearheading the effort to incorporate and improve the technology, developed by Yaeta Endo, professor at Ehime University in Matsuyama, Japan, and the director of the Japanese biotechnology company Cell-Free Sciences.
The collaboration between these groups was formalized recently in an agreement signed by CESG, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Ehime University and Cell-Free Sciences. The arrangement is for CESG to become the only site in the United States to test the new technology and compare it with existing methods.
""We've been working with them to come up with some improvements to the technology and to increase the yields,"" Markley said. ""We're trying to find ways to speed up the process.""
Traditional approaches to producing large amounts of a single protein involve using bacteria such as e. coli. But when asking bacteria to produce a protein foreign to that cell, many problems can occur such as toxicity, protein degradation and incorrect folding, Vinarov said.
Some proteins that couldn't be synthesized in the bacteria can with the cell-free method, which uses only the ingredients from cells needed to produce a protein, he said. ""With the cell-free system, you're bypassing all the limitations of the cell.""
And although the cell-free method has been utilized for years, Markley said, the new technology will speed up the process.
As opposed to the traditional method, which may take days to produce the needed amount of protein, Markley said, with the new technology ""it will be possible to synthesize up to 400 proteins overnight.""
The new technology also automates several steps normally done by scientists. The robotic system will be shipped from Cell-Free Sciences to Markley's lab in mid-November, according to a press release.
""This new approach is generating a lot of excitement,"" Markley said. ""A lot of groups are looking to see if it's successful.\
