International Institute of Rare Sugar Research and Education

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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
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