Technology Partnership of Nagoya University, Inc.
World Class Research Contributing to Society
Dr. Satoshi Okada
Assistant Professor
Bioscience and Biotechnology Center
Nagoya University, Japan
BIO.
After graduating from the Department of Bioresource Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Kobe University in 2013, Dr. Okada received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Bioresource Science, Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Kobe University. After working with the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Research Fellowships for Young Scientists (DC2 and PD) in the Department of Bioresource Science, Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Kobe University (2017-2018), he worked as a specially appointed assistant professor with the Institute of Plant Science and Resources, The University of Okayama (2019-2021), and as a specially appointed assistant professor with the Bioscience and Biotechnology Center, Nagoya University (2021-2022) before assuming his current position in June 2022.
The mechanism of heterosis in high-biomass sorghum and its application to breeding
Decarbonization is essential for mitigating the effects of climate change and ensuring a sustainable future. Biomass, as a renewable energy source, is important because plant material is carbon-neutral. Heterosis increases the biomass of many crops, so is valuable in energy production. Despite the importance of heterosis and proposed models of its mechanisms, the genetic mechanisms through which the heterosis of biomass occurs are not yet fully understood. F1 hybrid cultivars of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) have been widely used for forage in Japan, given their large biomass, attracting attention as a raw material for bioenergy and biorefinery. In the F1 breeding of sorghum in Japan, parental seed lines and/or pollen lines have been crossed to evaluate the effects on biomass, and appropriate combinations have been selected. Here, we focused on the biomass of sorghum, and analyzed the quantitative trait loci (QTLs) of the progeny of a high-biomass sorghum F1 hybrid to study the effects on heterosis. As a result, five QTLs were identified for culm length, which were mainly explained using the dominance model. Five resultant homozygous dominant alleles were used to develop pyramided lines, which produced biomass similar to that of the original F1 line. These results will change the breeding strategy used for increasing sorghum biomass.
Selected Publication
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Yoshida H, Okada S, Wang F, Shiota S, Mori M, Kawamura M, et al. Integrated genome-wide differentiation and association analyses identify causal genes underlying breeding-selected grain quality traits in japonica rice. Mol Plant. 2023;16:1460–1477.
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Hashimoto S, Okada S, Araki-Nakamura S, Ohmae-Shinohara K, Miura K, Kawaguchi H, et al. An analysis of sugary endosperm in sorghum: Characterization of mutant phenotypes depending on alleles of the corresponding starch debranching enzyme. Front Plant Sci. 2023;14:1114935.
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Fekih R, Ishimaru Y, Okada S, Maeda M, Miyagi R, Obana T, et al. High-Density Linkage Maps from Japanese Rice japonica Recombinant Inbred Lines Using Genotyping by Random Amplicon Sequencing-Direct (GRAS-Di). Plants. 2023;12:929.
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Okada S, Iijima K, Hori K, Yamasaki M. Genetic and epistatic effects for grain quality and yield of three grain-size QTLs identified in brewing rice (Oryza sativa L.). Mol Breed. 2020;40:88.
Full list of Publication
Dr. Anna Locke
Soybean & Nitrogen Fixation Research Unit
Agricultural Research Service
US Department of Agriculture
Raleigh, NC
BIO.
Anna Locke is a Research Plant Physiologist with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and USDA Assistant Professor in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences and Plant Sciences Initiative at North Carolina State University. Dr. Locke’s graduate work at the University of Illinois probed leaf hydraulic responses to climate change, and her postdoctoral research at the University of California, Riverside illuminated post-submergence recovery strategies in rice. Currently, her USDA research group focuses on genotype-environment interactions among soybean varieties, with particular emphasis on drought and heat stress.
Field- and AI-based approaches to improve soybean temperature stress tolerance
High temperatures can reduce soybean productivity and seed quality. Because infrastructure requirements prohibit the direct application of a temperature treatments to a large field area, a conventional strategy such as GWAS or QTL mapping is not practical for identifying the molecular regulators of temperature stress responses. A mechanistic approach coupled with a powerful, AI-enabled analysis strategy is needed to understand and improve extreme temperature tolerance in crops. We investigated phenotypic variation in heat stress responses in an open-air field experiment, comparing the physiological and agronomic responses of several soybean genotypes to a 4 °C above ambient air temperature increase during the seed fill period. Plants grew in the ground and in open air conditions, to realistically mimic an agronomic setting. We found that physiological and seed composition responses to elevated temperature varied among genotypes and among the three years of the field study. Concurrently, we collaborated with computational experts to develop a neural network-based analysis pipeline with the power to identify molecular regulators in a dataset using only a few genotypes, and we have successfully identified a novel regulator of cold tolerance in soybean. Our work has demonstrated that field experimentation coupled with novel analytic strategies may aid crop improvement through breeding or biotechnology.
Selected Publication
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Van den Broeck L, Bhosale DK, Song K, de Lima CFF, Ashley M, Zhu T, Zhu S, Van De Cotte B, Neyt P, Ortiz AC, Sikes TR, Aper J, Lootens P, Locke AM, De Smet I, and Sozzani R. Functional annotation of proteins for signaling network inference in non-model species. Nature Communications 14: 4654. [Link]
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Ortiz AC, De Smet I, Sozzani R, Locke AM (2022) Field-grown soybean shows genotypic variation in physiological and seed composition responses to heat stress during seed development. Environmental and Experimental Botany 195:104765.
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Siebers MH, Yendrek CR, Drag D, Locke AM, Rios Acosta L, Leakey ADB, Ainsworth EA, Bernacchi CJ, Ort DR (2015) Heat waves imposed during early pod development in soybean (Glycine max) cause significant yield loss despite a rapid recovery from oxidative stress. Global Change Biology 21:3114-3125.
Full list of Publication
Dr. Yusuke Aihara
Designated Lecturer
Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecule, Nagoya University, Japan
BIO.
After graduating from the Department of Botany, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University in 2012, Dr. Aihara received his Ph.D. degree from the Department of Botany, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University. He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute of Basic Biology (2012-2018) and the Division of Biological Science, Nagoya University (2018- 2022) before he has been in his current position since October 2022.
Conferring drought tolerance on plants by isothiocyanate-based inhibitors on stomatal opening.
Stomatal pores in the plant epidermis open and close to regulate gas exchange between leaves and the atmosphere. Upon light stimulation, the plasma membrane (PM) H+-ATPase is phosphorylated and activated via an intracellular signal transduction pathway in stomatal guard cells, providing a primary driving force for the opening movement. To uncover and manipulate this stomatal opening pathway, we have conducted a series of chemical screening and identified several potent inhibitors/activators on stomatal opening.1,2
In this talk, I will introduce one of the most potent stomatal-opening inhibitors, benzyl isothiocyanate (BITC, Brassicales-specific metabolite) that suppresses PM H+-ATPase phosphorylation.3 Through structure-activity relationship study, we have successfully developed BITC derivatives with at most 66-times higher inhibitory activity on stomatal opening, as well as a longer duration of the effect and negligible toxicity. Treatment of the BITC-based inhibitors suppressed plant leaf wilting, highlighting their potential as agrochemicals that confer drought tolerance on plants.
Selected Publication
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Wang, T.; Ye, W.; Wang, Y.; Zhang, M.; Aihara, Y.; Kinoshita, T. Protease Inhibitor-Dependent Inhibition of Light-Induced Stomatal Opening. Front. Plant Sci. 2021, 12, 1926. [Link]
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Toda, Y.; Perry, G. J. P.; Inoue, S.; Ito, E.; Kawakami, T.; Narouz, M. R.; Takahashi, K.; Aihara, Y.; Maeda, B.; Kinoshita, T.; Itami, K.; Murakami, K. Identification of Stomatal-Regulating Molecules from de Novo Arylamine Collection through Aromatic C–H Amination. Sci. Rep. 2022, 12 (1), 949. [Link]
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Aihara, Y.; Maeda, B.; Goto, K.; Takahashi, K.; Nomoto, M.; Toh, S.; Ye, W.; Toda, Y.; Uchida, M.; Asai, E.; Tada, Y.; Itami, K.; Sato, A.; Murakami, K.; Kinoshita, T. Identification and Improvement of Isothiocyanate-Based Inhibitors on Stomatal Opening to Act as Drought Tolerance-Conferring Agrochemicals. Nat Commun 2023, 14 (1), 2665. [Link]
Full list of Publication
Dr. Joe Gage
Assistant Professor
Laboratory of Crop Science
Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, North Carolina State University
BIO.
Joe Gage did his PhD at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, studying quantitative genetics, high throughput phenotyping, and plant breeding. Following this, he was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University working on regulation of gene expression, pangenomics, and novel phenotyping modalities. He has been a professor at NCSU since 2022, where his group focuses on linking crop genomics and phenomics to understand how to develop more resilient and productive crop varieties. Current projects include studying how sequence variation controls gene regulation; how gene regulation contributes to genotype-by-environment interactions; and novel methods for processing and interpreting high throughput phenotyping data.
Interactions and natural variation driving gene expression patterns
How does natural sequence variation impact gene expression? How do patterns of gene expression change over time and space? My group is interested in both of these questions. In this presentation, I will showcase a number of projects ongoing or recently completed by my group. These projects utilize natural variation in maize to learn about modes of gene regulation as well as genotype-by-environment and genotype-by-time interactions that we hypothesize are important drivers of adaptation to existing and changing climates.
Selected Publication
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The effect of artificial selection on phenotypic plasticity in maize [Link]
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Variation in upstream open reading frames contributes to allelic diversity in maize protein abundance [Link]
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A Maize Practical Haplotype Graph Leverages Diverse NAM Assemblies [Link]
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In-Field Whole-Plant Maize Architecture Characterized by Subcanopy Rovers and Latent Space Phenotyping [Link]
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Selection Signatures Underlying Dramatic Male Inflorescence Transformation During Modern Hybrid Maize Breeding [Link]
Full list of Publication
Dr. Masaaki Terano
Designated Professor, General Creative Manager
Promotion Office for Open Innovation Manager
Institute of Innovation for Future Society
Nagoya University, Japan
Executive Officer
Tokai Innovation Institute Inc. Japan
BIO.
After Master's degree in Materials Engineering, in a major electronics manufacturer, responsible for research and development of building equipment such as air conditioning and lighting, as well as the design and commercialization of building energy management systems (HEMS, BEMS).
After that, working in business planning for hairdressing and beauty and cooking appliances businesses.
Finally, in charge of new business development in that company.
After launching some new businesses, for example coffee roasting service etc, has been charged the current position.
Industry-academia collaboration activities in food and agriculture
Japanese food culture, represented by Japanese cuisine, is highly rated around the world. We are working with industry to transform everything from a platform for evaluating deliciousness to no-till cultivation, new style agriculture and so on.
In this lecture, we introduce the construction of salon-like activities, TOIS : Tokai Open-Innovation Institute, involving industry using universities.
TOIS is made up of business people, researchers, chefs and farmers implementing cutting-edge initiatives.
We introduce some themes recreating from TOIS activities, re-generative agriculture, deliciousness, functional foods, food loss and etc.