Dr. Shoichiro Ono

Biography

Shoichiro Ono's primary research interest is the mechanisms regulating the dynamic rearrangement of the actin cytoskeleton in cellular events, including development, cell movement, and cytokinesis in human diseases. He studies these problems using the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as a model system. C. elegans is used to investigate various aspects of development due to its relative simplicity in body patterning and its applications in genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, and cell biology. Ono is particularly interested in the functions of actin depolymerizing factor (ADF) and the cofilin family of actin-binding proteins, which are crucial for enhancing actin filament dynamics. He discovered that ADF/cofilin proteins are generated from the unc-60 gene, which regulates the activities of actin. Through mutation expression analyses, it was demonstrated that ADF/cofilin isoforms (UNC-60B) are specifically required for the organized assembly of actin filaments in muscle tissue. ADF/cofilin promotes the depolymerization and severing of actin filaments, while tropomyosin inhibits this effect by stabilizing the filaments. Furthermore, ADF/cofilin isoform (UNC-60A) is highly expressed in early embryos, which regulates cytokinesis and embryonic patterning. Additionally, he found that actin-interacting protein 1 (AIP1) is a new regulator of muscle actin filaments, specifically interacting with ADF/cofilin-bound actin filaments to enhance filament depolymerization. Currently, Ono is studying the functions of proteins that regulate actin dynamics in the developmental aspects of C. elegans.

Research Interests

Experience