Anatomy and Cell Biology

March, 1978

Graduated from Kyoto University Faculty of Medicine

April, 1978

Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy Kyoto University Faculty of Medicine

February, 1982

Associate Professor, Department of Anatomy
Kyoto University Faculty of Medicine

May, 1995

Professor and Chairman
Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology
Gunma University School of Medicine

April, 1999-present

Professor and Chairman
Department of Anatomy and Molecular Cell Biology
Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine

Nano-scale analysis of lipid-based structures

Membrane microdomain (caveolae, rafts), lipid droplet, and autophagosome are formed based on the property of lipids, and thus we call them as lipid-based structures. Their abnormalities may lead to cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, obesity, liver steatosis, and other diseases. But the lipid-based structures are difficult to study by most conventional techniques. Our research goal is to develop a new ultrastructural technique to analyze the lipid-based structures. We have already established an electron microscopic method to visualize distribution of gangliosides at the nanometer scale, and are now trying to apply it to other membrane lipids to analyze their role in cancer invasion and autophagy. For lipid droplets, we showed previously that they are the platform of intracellular protein degradation processes, i.e., proteasomal and autophagic degradation. To extend the finding, we are now analyzing several candidate proteins that may be involved in the protein degradation process around the lipid droplet. By elucidating their functions at the cellular and the whole animal levels, we would like to understand their relationship with various diseases.

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2. Fujita A et al. Gangliosides GM1 and GM3 in the living cell membrane form clusters susceptible to cholesterol depletion and chilling. Mol. Biol. Cell 18: 2812-2822 (2007)
3. Ohsaki Y et al. Cytoplasmic lipid droplets are sites of convergence of proteasomal and autophagic degradation of apolipoprotein B. Mol. Biol. Cell 17: 2674-2683 (2006)
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1988　Young Investigator Award
（The 8th International Congress on Histochemistry and Cytochemistry）
1996 Seto Award (The Society Award of The Japanese Society for Electron Microscopy)