15th CEMS Colloquium

Speaker

Prof. Hiroyuki Noji (University of Tokyo)

Date

17:30 - 18:30, March 12, 2014 (Wednesday)

Venue

Okochi-Hall, RIKEN

Title

Single‐molecule biophysics of the rotary molecular motor in cells, ATP synthase

Abstract

The unique feature of ATP synthase that distinguishes from other molecular motor proteins is high reversibility of chemo-mechanical coupling reaction; when the mechanical motion of ATP synthase, that is rotation of the innersubunit complex, is reversed, chemical reaction is also reversed, synthesizing adenosine triphosphate (ATP) from adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and inorganic phosphate against the large chemical potential of ATP hydrolysis. In this presentation, I will introduce our single-molecule experiments conducted with an aim to elucidate how catalytic reaction is coupled with mechanical rotation in ATP synthase. I also like to discuss the prospectives of molecular machine-based technology for highly efficient energy conversion.