RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science Biomacromolecules Research Team

Team Director: Keiji Numata (Ph.D.)

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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)