Division of Rare Sugar Production
Enzyme/Gene Resource
This field promotes fundamental researches for the selection and purification of various rare sugars producing enzymes as well as cloning of their genes, based on the strategy of "Izumoring", which summarized a blueprint design for converting D-glucose into various different rare sugars by multiple enzymes.
Ken Izumori 2006. Izumoring: A strategy for bioproduction of all hexoses.
J. Biotechnol. 124: 717–722.
Researchers
| Izumori, Ken Research Adviser ＆ Professor Emeritus | Akimitsu, Kazuya Vice Director ＆ Professor |
| Yoshihara, Akihide Assistant Director ＆ Associate Professor | Mochizuki, Susumu Associate Professor |
| Kato, Shiro Associate Professor |
Biochemistry
This field promotes X-ray crystallographic analyses of various rare sugar producing enzymes for fundamental researches such as the molecular designs for modifying functions based on the correlation between function and three-dimensional structure information.
Hiromi Yoshida, Mitsugu Yamada, Takeyori Nishitani, Goro Takada, Ken Izumori, Shigehiro Kamitori 2007. Crystal structures of D-tagatose 3-epimerase from Pseudomonas cichorii and its complexes with D-tagatose and D-fructose.
J. Mol. Biol. 374: 443-453.
Researchers
| Kamitori, Shigehiro Director of LSRC & Professor | Yoshida, Hiromi Associate Professor |
| Nakakita, Shinichi Associate Professor |
Sugar Organic Chemistry
This field promotes a design and production of the new compounds by modifying rare sugars or cross-linking rare sugars with other compounds by organic chemistry and links its findings to fundamental researches to increase the effectiveness of enzymatic activity by the structural modifications.
Andreas F. G. Glawar, Sarah F. Jenkinson, Scott J. Newberry, Amber L. Thompson, Shinpei Nakagawa, Akihide Yoshihara, Kazuya Akimitsu, Ken Izumori, Terry D. Butters, Atsushi Kato and George W. J. Fleet 2013. An approach to 8 stereoisomers of homonojirimycin from D-glucose via kinetic & thermodynamic azido-γ-lactones.
Org. Biomol. Chem.11: 6886-6899.
Researchers
| George Fleet Visiting Professor | Lingbing Kong Associate Professor |