RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science Biomacromolecules Research Team
Team Leader: Keiji Numata (Ph.D.)
Research Summary

"Biomacromolecules Research Team" aims to create "new functional enzymes" as well as to develop "new plants and microorganisms" using organellar engineering to synthesize biopolymers such as structural proteins/polypeptide. One of the final goals of the laboratory is to develop the bioprocess to produce and design the biopolymers as structural materials.
Main Research Fields
- Engineering
Related Research Fields
- Chemistry
- Biological Sciences
- Agricultural Sciences
- Polymer Science
- Bio-related chemistry
- Plant Biotechnology
Keywords
- polypeptide
- structural protein
- chemoenzymatic polymerization
- marine photosynthetic bacteria
- Organelle engineering
Selected Publications
- 1.
Keiji Numata, David L. Kaplan.:
"Silk Proteins: Designs from nature with multipurpose utility and infinite future possibilities."
Advanced Materials, Article number 2411256 (2024) - 2.
Ali D. Malay, Nur Alia Oktaviani, Jianming Chen, Keiji Numata.:
"Spider silk: Rapid, bottom-up self-assembly of MaSp1 into hierarchically structured fibers through biomimetic processing."
Advanced Functional Materials, Article number 2408175 (2024) - 3.
Chonprakun Thagun, Masaki Odahara, Yutaka Kodama, Keiji Numata.:
"Identification of a highly efficient chloroplast-targeting peptide for plastid engineering."
Plos Biology, 22(9): e3002785 (2024) - 4.
Kousuke Tsuchiya, Kayo Terada, Taichi Kurita, Takumi Watanabe, Alexandros Lamprou, Keiji Numata.:
"Regiocontrol of the Bulk Polymerization of Lysine Ethyl Ester by the Selection of Suitable Immobilized Enzyme Catalysts."
Biomacromolecules, 25, 8, 5110–5120 (2024) - 5.
Shamitha Rao Morey-Yagi, Yu Kinoshita#, Ko Motoki, Yu Iwahashi, Dao Duy Hanh, Shota Kato, Ryohei Nakano, Kumiko Ochiai, Masaru Kobayashi, Tetsuya Nakazaki, Keiji Numata.:
"Utilization of lysed and dried bacterial biomass from the marine purple photosynthetic bacterium Rhodovulum sulfidophilum as a sustainable nitrogen fertilizer for plant production."
npj Sustainable Agriculture, 2, Article number: 10 (2024) - 6.
Jianming Chen, Arata Tsuchida, Ali D. Malay, Kousuke Tsuchiya, Hiroyasu Masunaga, Yui Tsuji, Mako Kuzumoto, Kenji Urayama, Hirofumi Shintaku, Keiji Numata.:
"Replicating shear-mediated self-assembly of spider silk through microfluidics."
Nature Communications, 15, Article number: 527 (2024) - 7.
Naoto Yoshinaga, Takaaki Miyamoto, Masaki Odahara, Seia Nara, Kiminori Toyooka, Noriko Takeda, Haruna Nishimura, Feng Ling, Masayuki Su’etsugu, Minoru Yoshida, Keiji Numata.:
"Design of an artificial peptide inspired by transmembrane mitochondrial protein for escorting exogenous DNA into the mitochondria to restore their functions by simultaneous multiple gene expression."
Advanced Functional Materials, 2306070 (2023) - 8.
Kazuharu Arakawa, Nobuaki Kono, Ali D. Malay, Ayaka Tateishi, Nao Ifuku, Hiroyasu Masunaga, Ryota Sato, Kousuke Tsuchiya, Rintaro Ohtoshi, Daniel Pedrazzoli, Asaka Shinohara, Yusuke Ito, Hiroyuki Nakamura, Akio Tanikawa, Yuya Suzuki, Takeaki Ichikawa, Shohei Fujita, Masayuki Fujiwara, Masaru Tomita, Sean J. Blamires, Jo-Ann Chuah, Hamish Craig, Choon Pin Foong, Gabriele Greco, Juan Guan, Chris Holland, David L. Kaplan, Kumar Sudesh, Biman B. Mandal, Y. Norma-Rashid, Nur Alia Oktaviani, Rucsanda C. Preda, Nicola M. Pugno, Rangam Rajkhowa, Xiaoqin Wang, Kenjiro Yazawa, Zhaozhu Zheng, Keiji Numata.:
"1000 spider silkomes: Linking sequences to silk physical properties."
Science Advances. 8, eabo6043 (2022) - 9.
Simon Sau Yin Law, Geoffrey Liou, Yukiko Nagai, Joan Gimenez Dejoz, Ayaka Tateishi, Kousuke Tsuchiya, Yutaka Kodama, Tsuyohiko Fujigaya, Keiji Numata.:
"Polymer-coated carbon nanotube hybrids with functional peptides for gene delivery into plant mitochondria."
Nature Communications, 13, Article number: 2417 (2022) - 10.
Takaaki Miyamoto, Kousuke Tsuchiya,Kiminori Toyooka,Yumi Goto,Ayaka Tateishi,Keiji Numata.:
"Relaxation of the Plant Cell Wall Barrier via Zwitterionic Liquid Pretreatment for Micelle-Complex-Mediated DNA Delivery to Specific Plant Organelles."
Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 61, e202204234 (2022)
Recent Research Results
Jul. 8, 2020
Spider silk made by photosynthetic bacteriaNov. 22, 2019
How ions enable spiders to spin spider silkJan. 15, 2015
Paving a road toward mitochondrial plant cell factoriesApr. 25, 2014
The secret ingredient that strengthens silk biomaterials
Publications
Related Links
Lab Members
Principal investigator
- Keiji Numata
- Team Leader
Core members
- Ali Andres Defrance Malay
- Senior Scientist
- Simon Sau Yin Law
- Postdoctoral Researcher
- Naoto Yoshinaga
- Special Postdoctoral Researcher
- Przemyslaw Michal Jurczak
- Postdoctoral Researcher
- Yoko Horii
- Technical Staff I
- Ayaka Tateishi
- Technical Staff I
Careers
Position | Deadline |
---|---|
Seeking a Research Scientist or Postdoctoral Researcher (W24272) | Open until filled |