Taro Uyeda
Official Title
Professor
Department of Physics
Faculty of Science and Engineering
Examples of Classes Taught
Current Topics in Bioscience
Research Fields
Biophysics・Cell Biology
Research
Molecular analysis of functional genes in neural development in vivo
Actin is one of the most important proteins in eukaryotic organisms. Most eukaryotic cells express only one or two actin polypeptides, whose amino acid sequences are very similar from yeasts to higher animals and plants. Actin filaments play important roles in a number of diverse activities in each cell, but it is unknown how filaments of the same actin can perform different functions simultaneously in a common cytoplasm. Recent structural studies established that actin filaments exist in different conformations (cooperative polymorphism), and we propose that actin filaments with different structures perform different functions. In addition, directional propagation of structural changes in actin filaments may drive movement of the molecular motor myosin, in a manner similar to the guideways of maglev trains. To uncover the functional roles of cooperative polymorphism of actin filaments, we take a multi-faceted approach including biophysical, molecular biological and cell biological studies.
Selected Publications
1. Ngo, K.X., Umeki, N., Kijima, S., Kodera, N., Ueno, H., Furutani-Umezu, N., Nakajima, J., Noguchi, T.Q.P., Nagasaki, A., Tokuraku, K., Uyeda, T.Q.P.
Mutually exclusive cooperative binding of myosin and cofilin to actin filaments involves cooperative conformational changes of actin.
Sci. Reports, 6:35449.
2. Shibata, K., Nagasaki, A., Adachi, H., and Uyeda, T.Q.P. (2016)
Actin binding domain of filamin distinguishes posterior from anterior actin filaments in migrating Dictyostelium cells.
Biophys. Physicobiol., 13:321-331.
3. Umeki, N., Hirose, K. and Uyeda, T.Q.P. (2015)
Cofilin-induced cooperative conformational changes of actin subunits revealed using cofilin-actin fusion protein.
Sci. Reports, 6:20406.
4. Kijima, S. T., Hirose, K., Kong, S. G. Wada, M. and Uyeda, T.Q.P. (2016)
Distinct biochemical properties of Arabidopsis thaliana actin isoforms.
Plant Cell Physiol., 57:46-56.
5. Ngo, K.X., Kodera, N., Katayama, E., Ando, T., Uyeda, T.Q.P. (2015).
Cofilin-induced unidirectional cooperative conformational changes in actin filaments revealed by high-speed atomic force microscopy.
eLife, 2015;4:e04806.
6. Noguchi, T.Q.P., Morimatsu, M., Iwane, A.H., Yanagida, T. and Uyeda, T.Q.P. (2015)
The Role of Structural Dynamics of Actin in Class-Specific Myosin Motility.
PLoSOne, 10:e0126262.