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RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research Laboratory for Advanced Biomolecular Engineering

Team Leader: Shunsuke Tagami (Ph.D.)

Research Summary

Shunsuke  Tagami(Ph.D.)

Our team aims to engineer functional bio-macromolecules applicable to medical and basic biological researches, by integrating technologies in synthetic and structural biology including in vitro reconstruction of target protein complexes, in vitro evolution of protein/RNA, X-ray crystallography, and structure based protein engineering.
We are also trying to experimentally reconstruct evolutionary pathway from primordial peptides to elaborate proteins.

Keywords

  • Protein evolution
  • Protein structure
  • Functional peptides

Selected Publications

Papers with an asterisk(*) are based on research conducted outside of RIKEN.

  • 1. Yagi S, Tagami S.:
    "An ancestral fold reveals the evolutionary link between RNA polymerase and ribosomal proteins"
    Nature Communications 15, 5938 (2024).
  • 2. Chaban A, Minakhin L, Goldobina E, Bae B, Hao Y, Borukhov S, Putzeys L, Boon M, Kabinger F, Lavigne R, Makarova KS, Koonin EV, Nair SK, Tagami S, Severinov K and Sokolova ML.:
    "Tail-tape-fused virion and non-virion RNA polymerases of a thermophilic virus with an extremely long tail"
    Nature Communications 15, 317 (2024).
  • 3. Mohri K, Huynh Nhat KP, Zouda M, Warashina S, Wada Y, Watanabe Y, Tagami S, Mukai H.:
    "Lasso peptide microcin J25 variant containing RGD motif as a PET probe for integrin αvβ3 in tumor imaging"
    Eur. J. Pharm. Sci. 106339 (2022)
  • 4. Alfi A, Popov A, Kumar A, Zhang KYJ, Dubiley S, Severinov K, Tagami S.:
    "Cell-Free Mutant Analysis Combined with Structure Prediction of a Lasso Peptide Biosynthetic Protease B2"
    ACS Synthetic Biology 11, 2022–2028 (2022)
  • 5. Li P, Holliger P, Tagami S.:
    "Hydrophobic-cationic peptides modulate RNA polymerase ribozyme activity by accretion"
    Nature Communications 13, 3050 (2022)
  • 6. Yagi S, Padhi AK, Vucinic J, Barbe S, Schiex T, Nakagawa R, Simoncini D, Zhang KYJ, Tagami S.:
    "Seven Amino Acid Types Suffice to Create the Core Fold of RNA Polymerase"
    J. Am. Chem. Soc. 143, 15998–16006 (2021)
  • 7. Sumida T, Dubiley S, Wilcox B, Severinov K, Tagami S.:
    "Structural Basis of Leader Peptide Recognition in Lasso Peptide Biosynthesis Pathway"
    ACS Chemical Biology, 14, 1619–1627 (2019)
  • 8. *Tagami S, Attwater J, Holliger P.:
    "Simple peptides derived from the ribosomal core potentiate RNA polymerase ribozyme function"
    Nature Chemistry, 9, 325-332 (2017).
  • 9. Tagami S, Sekine S, Minakhin L, Esyunina D, Akasaka R, Shirouzu M, Kulbachinskiy A, Severinov K, Yokoyama S.:
    "Structural basis for promoter specificity switching of RNA polymerase by a phage factor"
    Genes & Development 28, 521-531 (2014).
  • 10. Tagami S, Sekine S, Kumarevel T, Hino N, Murayama Y, Kamegamori S, Yamamoto M, Sakamoto K, Yokoyama S.:
    "Crystal structure of bacterial RNA polymerase bound with a transcription inhibitor protein."
    Nature 468, 978-982 (2010).

Recent Research Results

Related Links

Lab Members

Principal investigator

Shunsuke Tagami
Team Leader

Core members

Akira Wada
Senior Research Scientist
Almasul Alfi
Research Scientist
Peiying Li
Research Scientist
Subrata Dasgupta
Postdoctoral Researcher
Kazumasa Ohtake
Visiting Scientist
Sota Yagi
Visiting Scientist
Takuto Furuhashi
Junior Research Associate
Aleksandr Popov
Junior Research Associate
Tami Kosuge
Assistant

Contact Information

Room C516, Central Building,
1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku,
Yokohama City, Kanagawa,
230-0045, Japan
Tel: +81-(0)45-503-9205

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