Yoshiaki Yasutake, PhD

Applied Molecular Microbiology Research Group,
Bioproduction Research Institute,
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)
2-17-2-1 Tsukisamu-higashi, Toyohira, Sapporo 062-8517, Japan
Email, y-yasutake@aist.go.jp

Research interests

My research interest is to investigate structure-function relationship of various enzymes potentially useful for applications such as biocatalytic production of certain rare/valuable compounds and diagnostic bio-sensing. Also, structural studies on some drug target proteins such as reverse transcriptase are in progress for novel anti-viral drug development.

Selected publications

• Yasutake Y, Hattori S, Hayashi H, Matsuda K, Tamura N, Kohgo S,  Maeda K & Mitsuya H. (2018) HIV-1 with HBV-associated Q151M substitution in RT becomes highly susceptible to entecavir: structural insights into HBV-RT inhibition by entecavir. Sci. Rep., 8(1), 1624. [PubMed] [PDB codes:5xn0, 5xn1 & 5xn2][Press release]
• Yasutake Y, Kameda T & Tamura T. (2017) Structural insights into the mechanism of the drastic changes in enzymatic activity of the cytochrome P450 vitamin D3 hydroxylase (CYP107BR1) caused by a mutation distant from the active site. Acta Crystallogr. Sect. F, 73(5), 266-275. [PubMed] [PDB codes: 5gnl & 5gnm]
• Yasutake Y,  Kitagawa W, Hata M, Nishioka T, Ozaki T, Nishiyama M, Kuzuyama T & Tamura T. (2014) Structure of the quinoline N-hydroxylating cytochrome P450 RauA, an essential enzyme that confers antibiotic activity on aurachin alkaloids. FEBS Lett., 588(1), 105-110.  [PubMed] [PDB code: 3wec ]
• Yasutake Y,  Nishioka T, Imoto N & Tamura T. (2013) A single mutation at the ferredoxin binding site of P450 Vdh enables efficient biocatalytic production of 25-hydroxyvitamin D3. ChemBioChem, 14(17), 2284-2291. [PubMed] [PDB code: 3vrm]
• Nishioka T, Yasutake Y, Nishiya Y & Tamura T. (2012) Structure-guided mutagenesis for the improvement of substrate specificity of Bacillus megaterium glucose 1-dehydrogenase IV. FEBS J., 279(17), 3264-3275. [PubMed] [PDB codes: 3aus, 3aut, 3auu, 3ay6 & 3ay7]
• Yasutake Y,  Fujii Y, Nishioka T, Cheon W-K, Arisawa A & Tamura T. (2010) Structural evidence for the enhancement of sequential vitamin D3 hydroxylation activities by directed evolution of cytochrome P450 vitamin D3 hydroxylase. J. Biol. Chem., 285(41), 31193-31201. [PubMed] [PDB codes: 3a4g, 3a4h, 3a4z, 3a50 & 3a51]

Main equipments

• Large scale Bio-shaker
• Sonicator/beads disruptor
• HPLC
• UV-vis spectrophotometer
• Microplate reader
• Gel-imaging system
• Protein purification system
• Protein Crystallization robotics
• Linux/MacOS PC for protein structure analysis and in silico works