Welcome to
Faculty of Life Sciences, Toyo University
Laboratory of Life Sciences for Extremophiles

Welcome to Prof. Masahiro Ito's Lab!

 
Faculty of Life Sciences, Toyo University
Laboratory of Life Sciences for Extremophiles

About our lab

The extreme environment is a harsh environment where we think, "A living creature cannot live at all !?" However, (micro) organisms also live in such environments.
 
Why is life alive in such harsh environments?
 
It must go back to the history of the earth. It is said that the earth was born 4.6 billion years ago, and the first life was born on the planet 3.8 billion years ago. In this long time, the "Earth" where we live is not necessarily a "calm" environment like today. Life on Earth has repeatedly become extinct, such as the Snowball Earth, in which glaciers cover the entire earth, the huge eruption "Superplume", and the massive extinction of life due to meteor falls.
 
Life on Earth is considered to have evolved by adapting to the "test" given by the Earth = “a harsh environment". In such environments, "Extremophiles" were born.
 
"Extremophiles" have "special abilities" that we do not possess. For example, "Hyper Thermophiles love temperatures above 100 ° C!", "Radio resistance bacteria fine even if they are exposed to strong radiation!", "Alkaliphiles like the strong alkaline environment!", " Halophiles fine even if they live in saturated hypersaline!"
 
In the Laboratory of Life Sciences for Extremophiles,
1. What kind of "special ability" do Extremophiles have?
2. What kind of mechanism is the ability?
3.Can we use the ability of our daily life?
We carry out daily research about the above.

News

Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (Research in Proposed research area)Harmonized super molecular motility machinery and its diversity（2012-2017）Our laboratory attends this project as a programed research group.［HP］［KAKENHI Database］

Awarded the 7th (FY2010) Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Prize on March 3, 2011.［JSPS］

Awarded the Inoue Enryo Award 2012 (Toyo University)(June, 2012)［News site］

The Surface Layer Homology Domain-Containing Proteins of Alkaliphilic Bacillus pseudofirmus OF4 Play an Important Role in Alkaline Adaptation via Peptidoglycan Synthesis, Frontiers in Microbiology, May 1, 2018

Load-and polysaccharide-dependent activation of the Na+-type MotPS stator in the Bacillus subtilis flagellar motor.

Mrp Antiporters Have Important Roles in Diverse Bacteria and Archaea.

Ion Selectivity of the Flagellar Motors Derived from the Alkaliphilic Bacillus and Paenibacillus species

Nonconventional cation-coupled flagellar motors derived from the alkaliphilic Bacillus and Paenibacillus species

Differences in the phenotypic effects of mutations in homologous MrpA and MrpD subunits of the multi-subunit Mrp-type Na+/H+ antiporter

Extremophiles2016 held at the Kyoto University Clock Tower Centennial Hall from September 12-16, 2016. Call for abstract now!

A novel type bacterial flagellar motor that can use divalent cations as a coupling ion. Riku Imazawa, Yuka Takahashi, Wataru Aoki, Motohiko Sano & Masahiro Ito, Scientific Reports 6, Article number: 19773 (2016)Press release is here.

Gordon Research Conference 2016 "Sensory Transduction in Microorganisms"was held at Ventura Beach Marriott from January 17-22, 2016. I was presented as selected oral speaker.

Group Photo

The bus tour for sophomore and third year of Dept. Life Sciences was carried out at New Enoshima Aquarium on January 15, 2016. The tour was included Backyard tour and a lecture from Aquarium stuff. It was so nice experiences for attended students to lean about work in the Aquarium.

Group Photo

Biological motion joint Group meeting 2016 was held from January 8-10, 2016 at Campus plaza Kyoto. Dr. Takahashi and Dr. Yamamoto and I were joined and presented oral presentation at the meeting.

New Year greeting from Representative of Research Project, Prof. Makoto Miyata at Osaka City University.

8/13/2014
Fujinami S, Takeda-Yano K, Onodera T, Satoh K, Sano M, Takahashi Y, Narumi I, Ito M. Draft Genome Sequence of Calcium-dependent Paenibacillus sp. Strain TCA20, Isolated from a Hot Spring Containing a High Concentration of Calcium Ions. Genome Announcements [In press]

7/28/2014
Ito M and Barquera B., Binding, Transport and Storage of Metal Ions in Biological Cells. CHAPTER 2 Sodium. Its Role in Bacterial Metabolism pp6-41 Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) (2014) Amazon

5/14/2014
Takahashi Y, Koyama K and Ito M. Suppressor mutants from MotB-D24E and MotS-D30E in the flagellar stator complex of Bacillus subtilis.J Gen Appl Microbiol, (2014) [In press]

5/1/2014
Fujinami S, Takeda K, Onodera T, Satoh K, Sano M, Narumi I and *Ito M. Draft Genome Sequence of Potassium-Dependent Alkaliphilic Bacillus sp. Strain TS-2 isolated from a jumping spider.Genome Announcments, 2(3) e00458-14 (2014)

4/7/2014
Takahashi Y and Ito M. Mutational analysis of charged residues in the cytoplasmic loops of MotA and MotP in the Bacillus subtilis flagellar motor.Journal of Biochemistry, (2014) [In press]J Biochem

1/1/2014
Morino M, Suzuki T, Ito M and Krulwich T.A. Purification and functional reconstitution of a seven-subunit mrp-type Na+/H+ antiporter. Journal of Bacteriology, 196(1): 28-35 (2014)JB