Katsuhiko Shirahige

Katsuhiko Shirahige
Born1965 (age 60–61)
Okayama Prefecture, Japan
CitizenshipJapanese
Alma mater
Known forGenome-wide analysis of chromosome dynamics; cohesin biology
Scientific career
FieldsMolecular biology
Workplaces

Katsuhiko Shirahige (Japanese name order: Shirahige Katsuhiko; born 1965) is a Japanese molecular biologist whose work centers on how chromosomes are organized, copied and regulated. He is a professor at, and director of, the Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (IQB) at the University of Tokyo, where much of his research concerns cohesin, a protein complex involved in both chromosome segregation and gene regulation.[1][2] He was the 22nd president of the Molecular Biology Society of Japan (MBSJ) in 2021–2022,[3] and received the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Prize for the 2008 fiscal year.[4][5]

Early life and education

Shirahige was born in 1965 in Okayama Prefecture.[6] He studied at the University of Tokyo, graduating from its Department of Basic Science in 1988, and then moved to Osaka University for graduate work, completing a doctorate in medical science in 1994.[6]

Academic career

Shirahige began his research career on a JSPS postdoctoral fellowship in 1994, and the following year took up an assistant professorship at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology.[4] In 2001 he joined the Genomic Sciences Center of RIKEN, and in 2004 he moved to the Tokyo Institute of Technology, where he was promoted to professor in 2007.[4] He has held a professorship at the University of Tokyo since 2010, and there went on to become director of the IQB.[1] Since 1 March 2024, he has also served as a visiting professor in the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.[7]

Research

Much of Shirahige's research has been focused on chromosome replication and cohesin, with cohesin related research among the more cited of his works. As of July 2026 his h-index has been assessed as 91.[8]

Genome-wide analysis of chromosome dynamics

Shirahige's early work used the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to examine where and how chromosomes begin to replicate, and how checkpoint mechanisms keep that process in order;[6] a 1998 paper in Nature, for instance, addressed the regulation of DNA-replication origins as cells move through the cell cycle.[9] In 2003 his group reported that the checkpoint proteins Tof1 and Mrc1 form a stable complex at paused DNA-replication forks;[10] John Diffley discussed the significance of the work in a commentary in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.[11] From there his group turned to the whole genome, developing and refining genome-scale applications of chromatin immunoprecipitation coupled with DNA microarrays (ChIP-chip) to chart protein–DNA interactions across entire chromosomes.[6][12] It was this body of work that the citation for his 2008 JSPS Prize recognized, crediting him with bringing together antibody-based protein detection, DNA-chip methods and informatics to make chromosome structure and dynamics systematically observable.[4]

Cohesin and gene regulation

Cohesin, a protein complex best known for holding sister chromatids together, became a central theme of his later research as it became clear that the complex also shapes gene regulation. Working with international collaborators, he helped show in a 2004 Nature paper that cohesin does not simply remain where it is loaded onto DNA but relocates to regions where transcription converges.[13] A 2007 study in Science, on which he was a collaborator, found that a single DNA double-strand break is enough to trigger cohesion across the genome — a result that Nature Reviews Genetics singled out, together with a parallel study from another group, in a research highlight.[14][15] The following year, Shirahige and Jan-Michael Peters, as shared corresponding authors, reported in Nature that cohesin helps insulate genes from one another through the CCCTC-binding factor (CTCF);[16] Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology featured that paper in a research highlight on the less familiar roles of cohesin.[17]

This interest in cohesin also drew Shirahige into the study of human developmental disorders that arise when the complex malfunctions. He was the shared corresponding authors of a 2012 Nature paper tracing a form of Cornelia de Lange syndrome to mutations in HDAC8 and showing how they disturb the cohesin acetylation cycle.[18] Three years later he was a shared corresponding author on a Nature Genetics study that identified gain-of-function mutations in AFF4 as the cause of CHOPS syndrome, linking the super elongation complex with cohesin;[19] the U.S. National Library of Medicine's MedlinePlus now names AFF4 mutations as the cause of the syndrome, citing that paper.[20]In 2025 his group reported evidence for a molecular mechanism shared by Cornelia de Lange and CHOPS syndromes.[21] Frank Uhlmann discussed the study and its implications for enhancer disruption in cohesinopathies in a Current Biology Dispatch.[22]

Academic service

From 2021 to 2022 Shirahige served as the 22nd president of the Molecular Biology Society of Japan.[3] The society is a large one: writing in 2023, the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) put its membership at 12,000 and noted its collaborations with EMBO itself and with the American Society for Cell Biology.[23]

Awards and honours

In 2003 Shirahige received the inaugural Mitsubishi Chemical Award of the Molecular Biology Society of Japan, for his analysis of the control of replication initiation in eukaryotic chromosomes.[24][a] He received the 5th JSPS Prize, for the 2008 fiscal year, under the citation "Establishment and Applications of Chromosome Analysis Technology Based on Genomic Information"; the prize is given each year to no more than 25 researchers drawn from across the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences.[4][5] In 2010 he received the Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, in the research category, for work on the molecular coordination of chromosome functions.[25][26]

Notes

  1. ↑ The society records the prize as its 1st Mitsubishi Chemical Award (三菱化学奨励賞); the subject's ORCID record renders it in English as the "Molecular Biology Society of Japan Young Scientist Award."

References

  1. 1 2 "Message from Director". Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, University of Tokyo. Retrieved 11 July 2026.
  2. ↑ "Laboratory of Genome Structure and Function". Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, University of Tokyo. Retrieved 11 July 2026.
  3. 1 2 "Message from the 22nd President". Molecular Biology Society of Japan. Retrieved 11 July 2026.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 第5回（平成20年度）日本学術振興会賞 受賞者及び受賞理由 [5th (FY2008) JSPS Prize recipients and reasons] (PDF) (in Japanese). Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. pp. 18–19. Retrieved 11 July 2026.
  5. 1 2 "Outline of the JSPS Prize; List of the 5th JSPS Prize Winners (FY2008)". Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Retrieved 11 July 2026. See also the "recipient list" (PDF). Retrieved 11 July 2026.
  6. 1 2 3 4 転写単位の境界を作る予想外のタンパク質 [An unexpected protein forms boundaries between transcriptional units] (PDF). Nature Digest (in Japanese). Vol. 5, no. 5. May 2008. pp. 32–33. Retrieved 11 July 2026.
  7. ↑ "Katsuhiko Shirahige". Karolinska Institutet. Retrieved 12 July 2026.
  8. ↑ "Katsuhiko Shirahige". Google Scholar. 12 July 2026. Archived from the original on 12 July 2026. Retrieved 12 July 2026.
  9. ↑ Shirahige, Katsuhiko; et al. (1998). "Regulation of DNA-replication origins during cell-cycle progression". Nature. 395 (6702): 618–621.
  10. ↑ Katou, Yuki; et al. (2003). "S-phase checkpoint proteins Tof1 and Mrc1 form a stable replication-pausing complex". Nature. 424 (6952): 1078–1083. doi:10.1038/nature01900.
  11. ↑ Diffley, John F. X. (2003). "Lessons in how to hold a fork". Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. 10 (10): 778–779. doi:10.1038/nsb1003-778.
  12. ↑ 振り返れば、自分の道ができていた [Looking back, I had made my own path] (in Japanese). Leave a Nest. 16 July 2008. Retrieved 11 July 2026.
  13. ↑ Lengronne, Anne; et al. (2004). "Cohesin relocation from sites of chromosomal loading to places of convergent transcription". Nature. 430 (6999): 573–578. doi:10.1038/nature02742. PMC 2610358.
  14. ↑ Ström, Lena; et al. (2007). "Postreplicative formation of cohesion is required for repair and induced by a single DNA break". Science. 317 (5835): 242–245. doi:10.1126/science.1140649.
  15. ↑ Skipper, Magdalena (2007). "Damage takes control". Nature Reviews Genetics. 8 (9): 652–653. doi:10.1038/nrg2183.
  16. ↑ Wendt, Kerstin S.; et al. (2008). "Cohesin mediates transcriptional insulation by CCCTC-binding factor". Nature. 451 (7180): 796–801. doi:10.1038/nature06634.
  17. ↑ Heinrichs, Arianne (2008). "Cohesin branches out". Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology. 9 (4): 269. doi:10.1038/nrm2371.
  18. ↑ Deardorff, Matthew A.; et al. (2012). "HDAC8 mutations in Cornelia de Lange syndrome affect the cohesin acetylation cycle". Nature. 489 (7415): 313–317. PMC 3443318.
  19. ↑ Izumi, Kosuke; et al. (2015). "Germline gain-of-function mutations in AFF4 cause a developmental syndrome functionally linking the super elongation complex and cohesin". Nature Genetics. 47 (4): 338–344. doi:10.1038/ng.3229. PMC 4380798.
  20. ↑ "CHOPS syndrome". MedlinePlus. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 11 July 2026.
  21. ↑ Sakata, Toyonori; et al. (2025). "A common molecular mechanism underlying Cornelia de Lange and CHOPS syndromes". Current Biology. 35 (6): 1353–1363.e5. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.044.
  22. ↑ Uhlmann, Frank (2025). "Cohesinopathies: Is enhancer disruption to blame?". Current Biology. 35 (6): R214–R216. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.046.
  23. ↑ "Strengthening ties with the science community in Japan". European Molecular Biology Organization. 1 February 2023. Retrieved 11 July 2026.
  24. ↑ 日本分子生物学会会報 第93号 [MBSJ News, Bulletin No. 93] (PDF) (in Japanese). Molecular Biology Society of Japan. June 2009. Retrieved 12 July 2026.
  25. ↑ 平成22年度 科学技術分野の文部科学大臣表彰 科学技術賞（研究部門）受賞者一覧 [FY2010 Commendation for Science and Technology by MEXT, Prizes for Science and Technology (Research Category): list of recipients] (in Japanese). Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. 2010. Retrieved 12 July 2026.
  26. ↑ 白髭克彦 [Katsuhiko Shirahige]. researchmap. Japan Science and Technology Agency. Retrieved 12 July 2026.
This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.