PROTEIN CONSTITUTING VOLTAGE-ACTIVATED PROTON CHANNEL AND USE THEREOF

摘要

[PROBLEMS] To provide the industrial applications of a voltage-sensitive proton channel of a mammal (e.g., human, mouse), which are accomplished in the course of the study for elucidating the molecular mechanism of the voltage-sensitive proton channel. [MEANS FOR SOLVING PROBLEMS] Search was made for candidate molecules of a mammal proton channel from genomes based on the known sea squirt VSP (voltage-sensitive phosphatase; non-patent document 1) DNA sequence. As a result, novel cDNA having a sequence similar to the structures of S1 to S4 of a voltage-sensitive channel (Fig. 1) is discovered based on the information about murine and human cDNA. This mVSOP1 (murine voltage-sensitive proton channel) cDNA is integrated into a vector and forced-expressed in a human established cell, and a current produced in the cell is measured. The results demonstrate that the mVSOP1 is a voltage-sensitive proton channel.