Yoshinori Ohsumi

Yoshinori Ōsumi (Japanese大 隅 良 典, Ōsumi Yoshinori; born February 9, 1945 in Fukuoka, Japan) is a Japanese cell biologist. He is known for research and discoveries for autophagy ( autophagy ).

Life

Ōsumis father was a professor at the University of Kyushu and engineer. Ōsumi received in 1967 a Bachelor's degree at the University of Tokyo and became his doctorate in 1974 at Kazutomi Imahori. During his studies, he moved from chemistry to molecular biology at that time located on the move. Until 1977 he was a post-doctoral researcher at Rockefeller University in Gerald Edelman, where his employment with wheat cells began (DNA replication ), and thereafter, he conducted research at the University of Tokyo (with Yasuhiro Anraku ), where he 1986 Lecturer ( Lecturer ) and 1988 assistant Professor (Associate Professor ) was. At the time he had already dealt with membrane transport in vacuoles in the cell that are part of the system of autophagy. In 1996 he was a professor at the National Institute for Basic Biology in Okazaki. He was also from 2004 to 2009 professor at the Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Hayama. In 2009 he retired and was then a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Work

He clarified the molecular mechanisms of autophagy (using the example of wheat cells, and later in mammalian cells) that adjust by degradation of endogenous proteins on converted environmental conditions in which he identified the enzymes involved with his group, its regulation depending on the metabolic state and the mechanism of formation of autophagosomes. In the wheat cell formed when nitrogen deficiency autophagosomes (membranes that surround the degraded proteins and of vacuoles or lysosomes leave ), make it to merge vesicles in the vacuoles and vacuoles. Ōsumi examined different genetic variants of wheat cells lacking for these processes of cell degradation important proteinases in the vacuole. 1991 was his group a first autophagy - defective mutants ( apg 1-1, later called ATG 1 ) and later they found 13 more ( ATG). With the soon made ​​deciphering of genomes of wheat cell, the corresponding genes have been cloned. ATG 1 corresponded to a protein kinase that others had complicated functions and met regulatory ubiquitin -like enzymes.

Awards

In 2005 he received the Fujihara Award, the 2006 Award of the Japan Academy, 2008 Asahi Prize and 2012, the Kyoto Prize. Since 2013 it is one of Thomson Reuters due to the number of its citations to favorites to a Nobel Prize (Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates ).

Writings

• With Tsukada: Isolation and characterization of autophagy - defective mutants of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In: FEBS Letters, Volume 333, 1993, pp. 169-174, abstract
• With Takeshige K., M. Baba, S. Tsuboi, T. Noda: Autophagy in yeast demostrated with proteinase -deficient mutants and conditions for its induction. In: Journal of Cell Biology, Vol 119, 1992, pages 301-311, Abstract
• With Takeshige, M. Baba, N. Baba: Ultra Structural analysis of the autophagic process in yeast: detection of autophagosomes and Their characterization. In: Journal of Cell Biology, Vol 124, 1994, pp. 903-913, abstract
• With Noboru Mizushima et al: A protein conjugation system essential for autophagy. In: Nature, vol 395, 1998, p 395, Abstract
• With Kabeya inter alia: LC3, a mammalian homologue of yeast Apg8p, is localized in autophagosome membranes after processing. In: EMBO Journal, Volume 19, 2000, pp. 5270-5278, PMC 305793 ( free full text )
• With K. Suzuki et al: The Pre - Autophagosomal Structure Organized by Concerted Functions of APG Genes Is Essential for autophagosome formation. In: EMBO Journal, Volume 20, 2001, pp. 5971-5981
• With Mizushima, Yoshimori: autophagosome formation in mammalian cells. In: Cell Struct. Funct. , Volume 27, 2002, pp. 421-429, PMID 12576635
• With Nakatogawa, Ichimura: Atg8, a ubiquitin -like Protein Required for autophagosome formation, mediates membrane tethering and hemifusion. In: Cell, Volume 130, 2007, pp. 165-178.