IQB Handbook

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23ACHIEVEMENTPUBLICATIONKujirai T, Ehara H, Fujino Y, Shirouzu M, Sekine SI, Kurumizaka H. Structural basis of the nucleosome transition during RNA polymerase II passage. Science. 2018 Nov 2;362(6414):595-598. DOI:10.1126/science.aau9904Ehara H, Kujirai T, Fujino Y, Shirouzu M, Kurumizaka H, Sekine SI. Structural insight into nucleosome transcription by RNA polymerase II with elongation factors. Science. 2019 Feb 15;363(6428):744-747. DOI:10.1126/science.aav8912Kujirai T, Zierhut C, Takizawa Y, Kim R, Negishi L, Uruma N, Hirai S, Funabiki H, Kurumizaka H. Structural basis for the inhibition of cGAS by nucleosomes. Science. 2020 Oct 23;370(6515):455-458. DOI:10.1126/science.abd0237The chromatin, a macromolecular complex, is composed of various basic units.KURUMIZAKAHITOSHIPH.D. (1995) SAITAMA UNIVERSITYPOSTDOCTORAL FELLOW (1995) NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTHRESEARCH SCIENTIST (1997) RIKENASSOCIATE PROFESSOR (2003) WASEDA UNIVERSITYPROFESSOR (2008) WASEDA UNIVERSITYPROFESSOR (2018) IQB / INSTITUTE FOR QUANTITATIVE BIOSCIENCES, THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO●MEMBER■ PROFESSOR :KURUMIZAKA HITOSHI ■ ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR :TAKIZAWA YOSHIMASA■ RESEARCH ASSOCIATE : NOZAWA KAYO■ RESEARCH ASSOCIATE : KUJIRAI TOMOYA■ RESEARCH ASSOCIATE : MATSUMOTO SYOTA■ PROJECT RESEARCH ASSOCIATE :SATO SHOKO■ TECHNICAL SPECIALIST :TAKEDA YASUKO ■ TECHNICAL STAFF :NEGISHI LUMI■ PROJECT RESEARCHER :DACHER MARIKO ELEONORE■ PROJECT RESEARCHER :FUJITA RISA ■ PROJECT RESEARCHER :TANAKA HIROKI■ PROJECT ACADEMIC SUPPORT STAFF :IIKURA YUKARI■ PROJECT ACADEMIC SUPPORT STAFF :KATO JUNKO■ PROJECT ACADEMIC SUPPORT STAFF :SHIGEMATSU YUMI■ PROJECT ACADEMIC SUPPORT STAFF :OGASAWARA MITSUO■ PROJECT ACADEMIC SUPPORT STAFF :KOBAYASHI NORIKO■ PROJECT ACADEMIC SUPPORT STAFF :GOTANDA KEIKOPUBLICATIONPUBLICATIONarious tissues are formed even though all cells of an organism contain the same genomic DNA, carrying the same genetic informa-tion. The mechanism responsible for this phenomenon is called epigenetics, allowing for specific genes to be expressed in specific tissues. Eukaryotic DNA is stored in the nucleus and is interacting with an array of proteins, forming a molecular complex called chromatin, whose primary structural unit is called nucleosome. In the last decade, numerous studies have shown that chromatin structure controls gene regulation, and that its disruption leads to various diseases, including lifestyle-related diseases, cancer, and mental disorders. Our objective is to elucidate the epigenetics mechanism by analyzing the structure and function of the chromatin.Our laboratory has reported numerous three-dimensional structures of chromatin using X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy analyses. We have determined the structure of the CENP-A nucleosome found at the centromere (Tachiwana et al., Nature 2011; Arimura et al., Nat. Commun. 2019; Takizawa et al., Structure 2020), the novel chromatin unit named overlapping dinucleosome (Kato et al., Science 2017), the basic unit of the heterochromatin (Machida et al., Mol. Cell 2018), and nucleosomes during transcription elongation in complexes with RNA polymerase II (Kujirai et al., Science 2018; Ehara et al., Science 2019). By solving diverse chromatin structures and identifying novel chromatin units, we are aiming to shed light on the mechanism by which the chromatin regulates the function of the genome.V