Research Areas

Efficient mutagenesis technologies and mutation detection systems are indispensable to develop biological resources. The genome-wide mutation discovery is also a key for the quality control of developed bioresources. The Mutagenesis and Genomics Team will develop a high-throughput and high-resolution mutation discovery system in particular to detect unknown newly-arizen mutations in the whole genome of higher eukaryotes. At the same time, we will develop useful mutagenesis infrastructure and technology and indeed provide useful bioresources such as model mice for human diseases to the research community. We use a potent mutagen, ethylnitrosourea (ENU) to induce point mutations in the mouse genome. Then the mutation discovery system allows us to detect randomly-induced single-base-substitutions in target genes. Contrary to ordinary genetics, it is called "reverse genetics" or "gene-driven mutagenesis", which provide mutant mouse lines to understand the biological function of the gene and genome. Mutant mice carrying mutations in candidate genes for human diseases are subjected to elucidate the mechanism of the diseases. In particular, so-called "next-generation sequencing technology" is currently being developed at the astonishing pace and scale. We integurate such state-of-arts technologies to the ultra-throughput detection system of mutations and polymorphisms for the development of human disease models as well as the quality control of our bioresources. The integrated system now enable to establish new model mice encomappsing the gene-to-gene interaction(s). The feasiblity of polygenic model mice have already shown by the comprehensive discovery of all the coding mutations by the next-generation sequencers with the whole mouse coding-exon enrichment system.

Research Subject

1. Development of ENU-based gene-driven mutagenesis and modeling human diseases in the mouse.
2. Development of the mutation discovery system for newly-arizen mutations and polymorphisms with next-generation techonologies.
3. Development of resources for the functional genomics including human and mouse gene-to-gene interactions.
4. Maintenance of bioresource based on mutations, recombinations and rearrangements of the genome.
5. Development of model systems for the highly conserved noncoding genomic sequences in the genome.

Related links

1. RIKEN BioResource Center Website_Laboratories Page
2. Individual Website Laboratory Page
3. NEXT-GENERATION GENE-TARGETING Page

Press release

September 10, 2008

Developing a method for sophisticated genome function analysis at the single base level