Kimura Lab
Staff
Hiroshi Kimura
(Professor)
Yuko Sato
(Assistant Professor)
Dynamics of chromatin and epigenetic regulation in vivo
In multicellular organisms, including human, all cells are derived from a single fertilized egg and so essentially harbor the same genetic information. During development and differentiation, specific gene subsets are expressed in specific cell types. As DNA is wrapped around histones to form nucleosomes in eukaryotes, gene expression is regulated at chromatin levels in addition to transcription factors that bind to DNA. In particular, DNA methylation and posttranslational histone modifications play a critical role in "epigenetic" gene regulation. To understand how transcription by RNA polymerase II is regulated by histone modifications and chromatin structure in vivo, we are tracking histone and RNA polymerase II modifications in living cells and organisms by developing new fluorescent probes.
Selected publications
- Sato Y, Hilbert L, Oda H, Wan Y, Heddleston JM, Chew TL, Zaburdaev V, Keller P, Lionnet T, Vastenhouw N, Kimura H. Histone H3K27 acetylation precedes active transcription during zebrafish zygotic genome activation as revealed by live-cell analysis. Development 2019, 146, dev179127.
- Sato Y, Kujirai T, Arai R, Asakawa H, Ohtsuki C, Horikoshi N, Yamagata K, Ueda J, Nagase T, Haraguchi T, Hiraoka Y, Kimura A, Kurumizaka H, Kimura H. A Genetically Encoded Probe for Live-Cell Imaging of H4K20 Monomethylation. J Mol Biol 2016, 428(20), 3385-3902.
- Stasevich TJ, Hayashi-Takanaka Y, Sato Y, Maehara K, Ohkawa Y, Sakata-Sogawa K, Tokunaga M, Nagase T, Nozaki N, McNally JG, Kimura H. Regulation of RNA polymerase II activation by histone acetylation in single living cells. Nature 2014, 516, 272-275.
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