Laboratory for Cell Lineage Modulation
Team Leader
Toru KONDO (Ph.D.)
Everyone wishes that any types of cells or tissues lost accidentally or by illness, were regenerated. Recent progress in medical research might be able to realize the enthusiasm. Stem cells, which give rise to many kinds of cells and function for tissue homeostasis, have been found in many adult tissues and become a center of attention as the best source for the regenerative medicine. Because the number of tissue-specific stem cells in adult is very small and the number of donor of the stem cells is very limited, there is an enthusiastic demand to find an alternative source of stem cells. We are interested in understanding how extracellular signals regulate epigenetic modification and chromatin remodeling, and how they can influence cell fates. Our research will focus on the molecular mechanism of the reversion of oligodendrocyte precursor cells to neural stem-like cells and we will apply the knowledge for CNS therapy. We are also interested in the stem cell-like cancer cells, cancer stem cells, in brain tumors. We will characterize them, investigate their origin, and develop new methods for brain tumor therapy.
- Investigation of the molecular mechanism of the reversion of oligodendrocyte precursor cells to neural stem cells
- Characterization of stem cell-like brain cancer cells
- Investigation of the molecular mechanism of cellular senescence
- Kondo, T., and Raff, M.:
"The Id4 HLH protein and the timing of oligodendrocyte differentiation."
EMBO J. - Kondo, T., and Raff, M.:
"Basic helix-loop-helix proteins and the timing of oligodendrocyte differentiation."
Development - Kondo, T., and Raff, M.:
"Oligodendrocyte precursor cells reprogrammed to become multipotential CNS stem cells."
Science - Kondo, T., Setoguchi, T., and Taga, T.:
"Persistence of a small subpopulation of cancer stem-like cells in the C6 glioma cell line."
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA - Setoguchi, T., and Kondo, T.:
"Nuclear export of OLIG2 in neural stem cells is essential for CNTF-induced astrocyte differentiation."
J. Cell Biol. - Kondo, T., and Raff, M.:
"Chromatin remodeling and histone modification in the conversion of oligodendrocyte precursors to neural stem cells."
Genes Dev. - Kondo, T., and Raff, M.:
"A role for Noggin in the development of oligodendrocyte precursor cells."
Dev. Biol. - Takanaga, H., Tsuchida-Straten, N., Nishide, K., Watanabe, A., Aburatani, H., and Kondo, T.:
"Gli2 is a novel regulator of sox2 expression in telencephalic neuroepithelial cells."
Stem Cells - Nishide, K., Nakatani, Y., Kiyonari, H., and Kondo, T.:
"Gliomagenesis from transformed neural stem cells depleted of prominin1-expressing cells."
PLoS ONE - Hide, T., Takezaki, T., Nakatani, Y., Nakamura, H., Kuratsu, J., and Kondo, T:.
"Sox11 prevents tumorigenesis of glioma-initiating cells by inducing neuronal differentiation."
Cancer Res.