Chief Scientist Laboratories Cellular Informatics Laboratory
Chief Scientist: Yasushi Sako (D.Sc.)
Research Summary

Complex and flexible behaviors of living cells are outputs of intracellular signaling molecule systems. Unitary reactions in molecular systems are stochastic events, use energy as low as thermal fluctuation, and the average number of molecules involved is sometimes less than 100 suggesting significant number fluctuation in individual cells. Thus, molecular systems are suffering large fluctuations even though cells look like to be acting purposively searching both internal and external environments. Cells seem to have special mechanisms to suppress fluctuations but it is also possible that cells have evolved to use fluctuations positively. How fluctuating molecular systems determine complex and flexible cellular behaviors? We are developing single-molecule analysis technologies in living cells and trying to find the answer "goes down with" everyone.
Main Research Fields
- Biology
Related Research Fields
- Complex Systems
- Biological Sciences
- Biophysics
Keywords
- Intracellular Signal Transduction
- Bioimaging
Selected Publications
- 1.
Abe, M., Yanagawa, M., Hiroshima, M., Kobayashi, T., and Sako, Y.:
"Bilateral regulation of EGFR activity and local PI dynamics observed with superresolution microscopy"
eLife :e101652 (2024). - 2.
Okamoto, K. and Sako, Y.:
"Two closed conformations of CRAF require the 14-3-3 binding motifs and cysteine-rich domain to be intact in live cells"
J. Mol. Biol. 435, 167989 (2023). - 3.
Maeda, R., Tamakgaki-Asahina, H., Sato, T., Yanagawa, M., and Sako, Y.:
"Threonine phosphorylation regulates the molecular assembly and signaling of EGFR in cooperation with membrane lipids"
J. Cell Sci. 135, jcs260355 (1-12) (2022). - 4.
Yoshizawa, R., Umeki, N., Yamamoto, A., Okada, M., Murata, M., and Sako, Y.:
"p52Shc regulates the sustainability of ERK activation in a RAF-independent manner"
Mol. Biol. Cell. 32, 1838-1848 (2021). - 5.
Okamoto, K., Hibino, K., and Sako, Y.:
"In-cell single-molecule FRET measurements reveal three conformational state changes in RAF protein"
Biochim. Biophys. Acta. Gen. Subj. 1864(2), 129358 (2020). - 6.
Yanagawa, M., Hiroshima, M., Togashi, Y., Abe, M., Yamashita, T., Shichida, Y., Murata, M., Ueda, M., and Sako, Y.:
"Single-molecule diffusion-based estimation of ligand effects on G protein-coupled receptors"
Sci. Signal. 11(548), eaao1917 (2018). - 7.
Hiroshima, M., Pack, C.-G., Kaizu, K., Takahashi, K., Ueda, M., and Sako, Y.:
"Transient acceleration of epidermal growth factor receptor dynamics produces higher-order signaling clusters"
J. Mol. Biol. 430(9), 1386-1401 (2018). - 8.
Maeda, R., Sato, T., Okamoto, K., Yanagawa, M., and Sako, Y.:
"Lipid-protein interplay in dimerization of juxtamembrane domains of epidermal growth factor receptor"
Biophys. J. 114(4), 893-903 (2018). - 9.
Nakamura, Y., Umeki, N., Abe, M., and Sako, Y.:
"Mutation-specific mechanisms of hyperactivation of Noonan syndrome SOS molecules detected with single-molecule imaging in living cells"
Sci. Rep. 7(1), 14153 (2017). - 10.
Arata, Y., Hiroshima, M., Pack, C.-G., Ramanujam, R., Motegi, F., Nakazato, K., Wiseman, P. W., Sawa, H., Kobayashi, T. J., Brandão, H. B., Shibata, T., and Sako, Y.:
"Cortical polarity of the RING protein PAR-2 is maintained by exchange rate kinetics at the cortical-cytoplasm boundary"
Cell Rep. 16(8), 2156-2168 (2016).
Recent Research Results
Annual research report
Related Links
Lab Members
Principal investigator
- Yasushi Sako
- Chief Scientist
Core members
- Mitsuhiro Abe
- Senior Research Scientist
- Kenji Okamoto
- Senior Research Scientist
- Akihiro Yamamoto
- Senior Technical Scientist
- Nobuhisa Umeki
- Research Scientist
- Hiromi Sato
- Technical Staff II
- Toshihide Kobayashi
- Senior Visiting Scientist
- Yoshio Hirabayashi
- Senior Visiting Scientist
- Michio Hirosnima
- Visiting Scientist
- Masataka Yanagawa
- Visiting Scientist
- Toshihiro Nagamine
- Special Temporary Research Scientist
- Ryo Yoshizawa
- Student Trainee
- Toshiko Sawai
- Assistant
Contact Information
2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama 351-0198, Japan
Email: sako-lab@riken.jp