Chemistry and bioligy of natural products that modulate cellular responses

The 60 trillion cells that make up our bodies maintain our normal biological activities through high-level control. Currently, however, much is still unknown about cell control mechanisms. Proteins play the intrinsic roles for determining the cellular events about cell growing, differentiations and so on, through the sequential assembly of the protein interactions, which drafts signal transduction pathways. Among a variety of methods to realize the protein function, an approach of chemical genetics is remarkable, in which small molecular compounds are used as probes to elucidate the protein functions within the signal pathways. Therefore, firstly we look for compounds that can modify the cellular responses such as cell growth, cell migration, autophagy modulation and cell death mainly from microbial extracts. Then, we investigate the mechanism underlying the compound-induced phonotypic changes of cells, by looking for target proteins of the compound, and studying signal transduction pathway responsible for cellular responses of interest, to find out how the compounds work.

 If this research progresses, we continues to the next stage: developing lead compounds for drugs to treat cancer and neurodegenerative disorders.

 In this session, I would like to present our recent chemical biology studies of the compounds modulating cellular responses.