The structure of the protein that won the Nobel Prize in 2021 was first analyzed by Chinese scholars

The structure of the protein that won the Nobel Prize in 2021 was first analyzed by Chinese scholars

The structure of the protein that won the Nobel Prize in 2021 was first analyzed by Chinese scholars.

"Every year when I give lectures, they will say that they will win the Nobel Prize sooner or later
.

" As soon as the phone was connected, Professor Yang Maojun of the School of Life Sciences at Tsinghua University told a reporter from Science and Technology Daily that the Nobel Prize was awarded to them

Academy of Sciences

On October 4th, the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to David Julius and Arden Pataptian for their outstanding contributions to human perception of pain and temperature mechanisms
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Some people may mutter in their hearts: "This professor waited until someone won the award and said whether it was an afterthought
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"

Don't worry, let's look at an academic paper first
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Related reports show: Tsinghua University Yang Maojun and his collaborators successfully analyzed the three-dimensional structure of the mechanical force-sensitive non-selective cation channel protein Piezo.

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is related to Piezo protein
.

Arden Pataptian found a pressure-sensitive gene in hundreds of cell membrane surface protein genes in humans, and discovered the ion channel protein Piezo it encodes

Exploring the mystery of the human body is the mission of life sciences
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As pioneers, the Nobel Prize winners have opened up a territory of new knowledge, and diligent scientists continue to follow up and enrich their research to jointly uncover the unsolved mysteries of the human body

As a scientist engaged in structural biology research, Yang Maojun's team continues to track the proteins in the living body, trying their best to obtain the proteins and analyze them
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There are a lot of proteins in the human body, which ones are worth analyzing?

Or, to ask more bluntly: How can we analyze the structure of a Nobel Prize-winning protein?

"The Nobel Prize has always been for the most essential things of life
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" Yang Maojun said that the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1988 has been awarded to light-harvesting complexes to reveal visual mechanisms, and the results this year are related to taste and touch.

Based on the judgment of the Nobel Prize tracking the essence of life, many teams have begun to focus on the newly discovered mechanisms (TRP, Piezo) of these two Nobel Prize levels
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Yang Maojun recalled that the first thing his team did was TRP ion channel, but it was later surpassed by other teams
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"In 2012, Gai Jingpeng from our laboratory (just joined the Shanghai University of Science and Technology to establish an independent laboratory) cloned more than 20 TRP ion channels to express, purify, and grow crystals respectively (Note: Crystal diffraction analysis of protein structure It is necessary to obtain enough protein crystals first), but none of them have grown crystals
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” Yang Maojun said, as a result, another research team used single-particle cryo-electron microscopy to analyze it

"We stopped all these topics the day after their article came out, and turned to focus on Piezo
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" Yang Maojun said, doing research can't follow, but do what others can't do

"Piezo is difficult to do, because it can feel the pressure signal, so the shake flask culture will not work, it will make the cells feel the strength and can't survive
.
" Yang Maojun said, but Gai Jingpeng was willing to endure hardships and was willing to think of ways.
Cells were cultured on the plate, and enough protein was harvested for cryo-electron microscopy analysis
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Only a small amount of Piezo protein was harvested from the cells cultured on thousands of petri dishes
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This is one of the reasons why the structure of this protein is still unable to be deciphered long after it was discovered
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An obvious example is that three to four years after Yang Maojun’s laboratory first published the structure of Piezo1 in 2015, other research groups used the research methods they developed to purify the protein and increase its resolution to the level of atomic resolution.
, Published many top papers
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During the interview, Yang Maojun mentioned his students many times.
He repeatedly stated that the results of many studies are due to the fact that the researchers are willing to sit down, start from the trivial, and work hard, and finally it is the recognition of human beings.
The scope opens up and expands the territory
.

2021 Nobel Prize