RIKEN Baton Zone Program GlycoTargeting Research Laboratory
Team Leader: Taiji Shimoda
Deputy Team Leader: Katsunori Tanaka (Ph.D.)
Research Summary


Glycans are involved in a variety of important physiological events, including cell-cell recognition, adhesion, signal transduction, and quality control. Dr. Tanaka, a Chief Scientist in Biofunctional Synthetic Chemistry Laboratory, RIKEN, proposes "cluster heterogeneity" and "pattern recognition" of glycoclusters as new mechanisms for highly selective interaction in biosystems, and developed glycocluster-based drug delivery systems (DDS).
By combining Dr. Tanaka's glycocluster DDS and manufacturing technology of human type glycans by GlyTech, Inc., our team aims to develop innovative in vivo targeting technology and drug discovery supports.
[Integrated Collaborative Research with GlyTech, Inc.]
Main Research Fields
- Chemistry
Related Research Fields
- Biology
Keywords
- Glycocluster
- Asparagine-linked glycan (N-Glycan)
- Pattern recognition
- Molecular imaging
- Theranostics
Selected Publications
- 1.R. Sibgatullina, K. Fujiki, T. Murase, T. Yamamoto, T. Shimoda, A. Kurbangalieva, K. Tanaka.:
"Highly reactive “RIKEN click” probe for glycoconjugation on lysines"
Tetrahedron Lett. 58, 1929-1933 (2017). - 2.K. Tsubokura, K. K. H. Vong, A. R. Pradipta, A. Ogura, S. Urano, T. Tahara, S. Nozaki, H. Onoe, Y. Nakao, R. Sibgatullina, A. Kurbangalieva, Y. Watanabe, K. Tanaka.:
"In vivo gold complex catalysis within live mice"
Angew Chem. Int. Ed., 56, 3579-3584 (2017). - 3.L. Latypova, R. Sibgatullina, A. Ogura, K. Fujiki, A. Khabibrakhmanova, T. Tahara, S. Nozaki, S. Urano, K, Tsubokura, H. Onoe, Y. Watanabe, A. Kurbangalieva, K. Tanaka.:
"Sequential double “clicks” toward structurally well-defined heterogeneous N-glycoclusters: The importance of cluster heterogeneity on pattern recognition in vivo"
Adv. Sci., 4, 1600394 (2017). - 4.K. Tanaka.:
"Chemically synthesized glycoconjugates on proteins: Effects of multivalency and glycoform in vivo"
Org. Biomol. Chem., 14, 7610-7621 (2016). - 5.A. Ogura, T. Tahara, S. Nozaki, H. Onoe, A. Kurbangalieva, Y. Watanabe, K. Tanaka.:
“Glycan multivalency effects toward albumin enable N-glycan-dependent tumor targeting,”
Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett., 26, 2251-2254 (2016). - 6.A. Ogura, A. Kurbangalieva, K. Tanaka.:
“Exploring the glycan interaction in vivo: Future prospects of neo-glycoproteins for diagnostics”
Glycobiology, 26, 804-812 (2016). - 7.A. Ogura, T. Tahara, S. Nozaki, K. Morimoto, Y. Kizuka, S. Kitazume, M. Hara, S. Kojima, H. Onoe, A. Kurbangalieva, N. Taniguchi, Y. Watanabe, K. Tanaka.:
"Visualizing trimming dependence of biodistribution and kinetics with homo- and heterogeneous N-glycoclusters on fluorescent albumin"
Sci. Rep., 6, 21797 (2016). - 8.M. Taichi, S. Kitazume, K. K. H. Vong, R. Imamaki, A. Kurbangalieva, N. Taniguchi, K. Tanaka.:
"Cell surface and in vivo interaction of dendrimeric N-glycoclusters"
Glycoconj. J., 32, 497-503 (2015). - 9.A. Ogura, A. Kurbangalieva, K. Tanaka.:
"Chemical glycan conjugation controls the biodistribution and kinetics of proteins in live animals"
Mini Rev. Med. Chem., 14, 1072-1077 (2014). - 10.S. Kitazume, R. Imamaki, A. Kurimoto, K. Ogawa, M. Kato, Y. Yamaguchi, K. Tanaka, H. Ishida, H. Ando, M. Kiso, N. Hashii, N. Kawasaki, N. Taniguchi.:
"Interaction of platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule (PECAM) with α 2,6-sialylated glycan regulates its cell surface residency and anti-apoptotic role"
J. Biol. Chem., 289, 27604-27613 (2014).
Related Links
Lab Members
Principal investigator
- Taiji Shimoda
- Team Leader
Core members
- Katsunori Tanaka
- Deputy Team Leader
- Kenward Vong
- Research Scientist
- Shogo Nomura
- Postdoctoral Researcher
- Peni Ahmadi
- Postdoctoral Researcher
- Takefumi Murase
- Visiting Scientist
- Masayo Ohara
- Assistant
- Yukari Matsuba
- Assistant
Contact Information
W201, 203, 205 Cooperation Center,
2-1 Hirosawa,
Wako, Saitama
351-0198, Japan
Tel: +81-(0)48-467-9146
Fax: +81-(0)48-467-9378
Email: taiji.shimoda [at] riken.jp