Research

The research interest of this laboratory is to understand the molecular mechanism of cell differentiation and organogenesis. Particularly, we are interested in transcription factors that regulate neural development.

Our research strategies are misexpressing the genes with retrovirus and electroporation (gain-of-function study) and generating knock-out mice (loss-of-function study).

We are focusing on basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors such as the repressor-type bHLH factors Hes1 and Hes5 and the activator-type bHLH factors Math, Mash, NeuroD and Neurogenin. During neural development, the following three major steps occur sequentially:

(1) maintenance of neural stem cells

(2) neurogenesis

(3) gliogenesis.

We have demonstrated that the steps (1) and (3) are regulated by the repressor-type bHLH factors, while the step (2) is regulated by the activator-type bHLH factors. These findings will be useful for the future regeneration therapy.


We are also interested in biological clocks that regulate embryogenesis. We have recently found that the bHLH factors Hes1 and Hes7 act as two-hour cycle biological clocks in embryos. Hes7 regulates the timing of somite segmentation, which occurs every two hours in mice. We are now studying what developmental processes, besides somite segmentation, these biological clocks regulate. This research will open the new field “Developmental Chronobiology”