Ishitani, Tohru

Profile

Prof. Ishitani received his Ph.D. from Nagoya University in 2002. After working as postdoctoral fellow in the same university, he became Associate Professor in the Medical Institute of Bioregulation, Kyushu University in 2006. He was appointed Professor in the Institute for Molecular and Cellular Regulation, Gunma University in 2017. He took his current position at RIMD in 2019.
He received Young Scientists' Prize of The Commendation for Science and Technology by MEXT in 2009, and Samuro Kakiuchi Memorial Award by the Japanese Biochemical Society in 2014, and NAGASE foundation award in 2020.

Publication

(1) Cell competition corrects noisy Wnt/β-catenin morphogen gradients to achieve robust patterning in the zebrafish embryo. Akieda Y., et al., Nature Commun. (2019)10: 4710
(2) Horizontal Boundary Cells, a Special Group of Somitic Cells, Play Crucial Roles in the Formation of Dorsoventral Compartments in Teleost Somite. Abe K., et al., Cell Rep. (2019) 27:928-939
(3) Hipk2 and PP1c cooperate to maintain Dvl protein levels required for Wnt signal transduction. Shimizu N., et al., Cell Reports (2014) 8(5) 1391-1404
(4) Visualization and exploration of Tcf/Lef function using a highly responsive Wnt/β-catenin signaling-reporter transgenic zebrafish. Shimizu N., et al., Developmental biology (2012) 370(1) 71-85
(5) NLK positively regulates Wnt/β-catenin signalling by phosphorylating LEF1 in neural progenitor cells. Ota S., et al., EMBO Journal (2012) 31:1904-15
(6) Nemo-like kinase suppresses Notch signalling by interfering with formation of the Notch active transcriptional complex. Ishitani T., et al., Nat. Cell Biol. (2010) 12:278-85
(7) Nrarp functions to modulate neural-crest-cell differentiation by regulating LEF1 protein stability. Ishitani T., et al., Nat. Cell Biol. (2005) 7:1106-12
(8) The TAK1-NLK-MAPK-related pathway antagonizes signalling between beta-catenin and transcription factor TCF. Ishitani T., et al., Nature (1999) 399:798-802

Lab