Establishment of drug screening system for mental disorder by generation of novel epigenome editing proteins

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K21661
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Neurophysiology / General neuroscience; Medical genome science
• Research Institution: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
• Principal Investigator: Hirano Kazumi 国立研究開発法人産業技術総合研究所, バイオメディカル研究部門, 研究員 (40707709)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 精神疾患 / エピジェネティクス / DNAメチル化 / エピゲノム編集 / DNMT / LSD1 / 神経幹細胞

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Recently, the relationship between mental disorder and abnormal DNA methylation in neuron has been reported. However, this detail mechanism remains unknown. To address this issue, we generated novel epigenome editing system using zinc finger protein (ZF) and DNA methyltransferase (DNMT). This system, named ZF-DNMT, induced DNA methylation on target genome region and reduced the expression level of target gene in human neural stem cells. Furthermore, we focused on histone demethylase LSD1, which is used for epigenome editing and interacts DNMT, and found that LSD1 is necessary for human neurogenesis.

Free Research Field

神経科学