Identification of a novel sensor molecule(s) for anti-fungal innate immune responses.

Research Project

Project/Area Number	26670209
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Research Field	Bacteriology (including mycology)
Research Institution	Chiba University
Principal Investigator	Yoneyama Mitsutoshi 千葉大学, 真菌医学研究センター, 教授 (40260335)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	SAIJO Shinobu 千葉大学, 真菌医学研究センター, 准教授 (60396877)
Project Period (FY)	2014-04-01 – 2016-03-31
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 2015)
Budget Amount *help	¥3,770,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥870,000) Fiscal Year 2015: ¥1,560,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥360,000) Fiscal Year 2014: ¥2,210,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥510,000)
Keywords	免疫学
Outline of Final Research Achievements	In this research project, we tried to identify a sensor molecule(s), which is responsible for detecting fungal cell wall component, chitin, in the host innate immune system. DNA microarray analysis using mouse bone marrow-derived dendritic cells and macrophages revealed that several cytokine genes are specifically induced by treatment of chitin. Activation of these genes were also observed in the cells prepared from MyD88 KO and CARD9 KO mice, suggesting multiple usage of these signaling molecules or existence of uncharacterized signaling pathway. These observations would help us to reveal molecular machinery of fungi-induced immune responses.