| DATE: |
2012-06-18 10:00 - 11:00 |
| PLACE: |
#1 meeting room, 2nd floor, 4 go kan |
| TITLE: |
IMSS seminar (12-15) “PSI:Stem Cell Biology” - Current Status and Future Direction - |
| CONTACT: |
Prof. Soichi Wakatsuki 5631 |
| SPEAKER: |
Dr. Fumiaki Yumoto (University of California, San Francisco) |
| LANGUAGE: |
English |
| ABSTRACT: |
Learning the mechanisms used for transcriptional control remain important goals in biology. Most molecular events in regulation of gene expression and determination of cell fate require multi protein and protein-nucleic acid complexes. These molecular machines act in response to molecular signaling to bind to promoters and enhancer sequences in DNA.
Although structural and functional studies elucidated molecular detail of individual proteins of these molecular machines, few detailed mechanisms are understood for multi-component assemblies.
In the last five years, generation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) and other cellular reprogramming methods using a few critical transcription factors has been established. Reprogrammed cells are being developed to cure disease and remedy injury. The methods of changing cell type by manipulation of a few defined molecules clearly remind us that transcription factors determine cell fate. To learn about the mechanisms, we have had the opportunity to launch one of 12 biology partnerships (PI: Robert Fletterick, UCSF) in PSI:Biology project in the United States, through the researches of human transcription factor complexes in the Fletterick lab and via collaborations with Shinya Yamanaka and Bruce Conklin labs in the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, UCSF. The project has also been collaborated with the Joint Center of Structural Genomics (JCSG; Beamline@SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory), one of Centers for High-Throughput Structure Determination to facilitate this program. The team is focusing on protein-protein, protein/DNA, and protein/protein/DNA complexes of human transcription factor machineries (We call this effort as “PSI:Stem Cell Biology”).
In this seminar, I will report the current status of this project on cell reprogramming factors and also discuss on the direction to overcome problems, associated with sample preparations of complexes, for future high-throughput crystallography. |
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