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RIKEN BioResource Research Center Plant-Microbe Symbiosis Research and Development Team

Team Leader: Yasunori Ichihashi (Ph.D.)

Research Summary

Yasunori  Ichihashi(Ph.D.)

Since most agricultural crops grow in soil, where is one of the richest microbial ecosystems on Earth, plants and microbes are strongly associated with each other. Elucidation of the plant-microbe symbiosis should contribute to building a sustainable solution for world food and environmental problems. Our team plan to construct bioresources and experimental systems of plants and microbes for the symbiosis studies, as well as perform large-scale omics studies on agricultural fields. Through collaborative researches with domestic and international communities, we aim to fully understand regulatory mechanism behind the plant-microbe symbiosis and provide a research platform leading to industrial applications.

Main Research Fields

  • Biology

Related Research Fields

  • Agricultural Sciences

Keywords

  • Plant-Microbe Symbiosis
  • Rhizosphere microbes
  • Mycorrhizal fungi
  • Field-Omics
  • The 21st Century Green Revolution

Selected Publications

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

  • 1. Ichihashi Y, Date Y, Shino A, Shimizu T, Shibata A, Kumaishi K, Funahashi F, Wakayama K, Yamazaki K, Umezawa A, Tanoi K, Hayashi M, Nakamura R, Shirasu K, Kikuchi J, Nihei N.:
    "Multi-omics analysis on an agroecosystem reveals the significant role of organic nitrogen to increase agricultural crop yield"
    Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1917259117
  • 2. Goto Y, Maki N, Ichihashi Y, Kitazawa D, Igarashi D, Kadota Y, Shirasu K.:
    "Exogenous treatment with glutamate induces immune responses in Arabidopsis"
    Mol. Plant Microbe Interact. 33, 474-487 (2020)
  • 3. Yoshida S, Kim S, Wafula EK, Tanskanen J, Kim YM, Honaas L, Yang Z, Spallek T, Conn CE, Ichihashi Y, Cheong K, Cui S, Der JP, Gundlach H, Jiao Y, Hori C, Ishida JK, Kasahara H, Kiba T, Kim MS, Koo N, Laohavisit A, Lee YH, Lumba S, McCourt P, Mortimer JC, Mutuku JM, Nomura T, Sasaki-Sekimoto Y, Seto Y, Wang Y, Wakatake T, Sakakibara H, Demura T, Yamaguchi S, Yoneyama K, Manabe RI, Nelson DC, Schulman AH, Timko MP, dePamphilis CW, Choi D, Shirasu K.:
    "Genome Sequence of Striga asiatica Provides Insight into the Evolution of Plant Parasitism"
    Curr. Biol. 29, 3041-3052 (2019)
  • 4. Ichihashi Y, Fukushima A, Shibata A, Shirasu K.:
    "High Impact Gene Discovery: Simple Strand-Specific mRNA Library Construction and Differential Regulatory Analysis Based on Gene Co-Expression Network"
    Methods Mol. Biol. 1830, 163-189 (2018)
  • 5. Toju, H., Peay, K. G., Yamamichi, M., Narisawa, K., Hiruma, K., Naito, K., Fukuda, S., Ushio, M., Nakaoka, S., Onoda, Y., Yoshida, K., Schlaeppi, K., Bai, Y., Sugiura, R., Ichihashi, Y., Minamisawa, K., Kiers, E. T.:
    "Core microbiomes for sustainable agroecosystems"
    Nat. Plants 4, 247-257 (2018)
  • 6. *Ichihashi, Y., Kusano, M., Kobayashi, M., Suetsugu, K., Yoshida, S., Wakatake, T., Kumaishi, K., Shibata, A., Saito, K., Shirasu, K.:
    "Transcriptomic and Metabolomic Reprogramming from Roots to Haustoria in the Parasitic Plant, Thesium chinense"
    Plant Cell Physiol. 59, 729–738 (2017)
  • 7. *Ichihashi, Y., Aguilar-Martinez, J. A., Farhi, M., Chitwood, D. H., Kumar, R., Millon, L. V., Peng, J., Maloof, J. N., Sinha, N. R.:
    "Evolutionary developmental transcriptomics reveals a gene network module regulating interspecific diversity in plant leaf shape"
    Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 111, E2616-E2621 (2014)
  • 8. *Chitwood, D. H., Kumar, R., Headland, L, R., Ranjan, A., Covington, M. F., Ichihashi, Y., Fulop, D., Jimenez-Gómez, J. M., Peng, J., Maloof, J. N., Sinha, N. R.:
    "A quantitative genetic basis for leaf morphology in a set of precisely defined tomato introgression lines"
    Plant Cell 25, 2465-2481 (2013)
  • 9. *Ichihashi, Y., Kawade, K., Usami, T., Horiguchi, G., Takahashi, T., Tsukaya, H.:
    "Key proliferative activity in the junction between the leaf blade and leaf petiole of Arabidopsis"
    Plant Physiol. 157, 1151-1162 (2011)
  • 10. *Ichihashi, Y., Horiguchi, G., Gleissberg, S., Tsukaya, H.:
    "The bHLH transcription factor SPATULA controls final leaf size in Arabidopsis thaliana"
    Plant Cell Physiol. 51, 252-261 (2010)

Recent Research Results

Related Links

Lab Members

Principal investigator

Yasunori Ichihashi
Team Leader

Core members

Megumi Narukawa
Research & Development Scientist
Takumi Sato
Postdoctoral Researcher
Tomohisa Shimasaki
Postdoctoral Researcher
Takahiko Koizumi
Visiting Researcher
Kie Kumaishi
Technical Staff II

Contact Information

BioResource Center Main Building
3-1-1 Koyadai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-0074, Japan
Email: yasunori.ichihashi [at] riken.jp

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