= Hitoshi Nakatogawa
{c}
Hitoshi Nakatogawa is a researcher in <molecular biology> and <biochemistry>. His work includes <ribosome stalling> and the membrane changes involved in <autophagy>. A named institutional laboratory profile identifies both his <autophagy> research and his earlier joint <SecM> papers with <Koreaki Ito>.<Hitoshi Nakatogawa laboratory spotlight at Tokyo Institute of Technology>[Research interest and Selected publications, especially the 2001 and 2002 SecM papers]{ref}
Nakatogawa and <Koreaki Ito> investigated how the sequence of an emerging <nascent chain> affects <translation (biology)>. Their 2002 paper identified an arrest sequence in <SecM> and <suppressor mutations> at the constriction of the <ribosomal exit tunnel>. The finding helped establish that a growing <protein> can influence the machinery synthesizing it.<The ribosomal exit tunnel functions as a discriminating gate by Hitoshi Nakatogawa and Koreaki Ito>[Abstract: arrest motif, 23S-rRNA and L22 suppressors]{ref}
To see a quantitative consequence of pausing, consider an invented steady-input example. If $2$ <ribosomes> per second enter a segment and each normally spends $0.5$ seconds there, its mean occupancy is $2\times0.5=1$ <ribosome>. A pause increasing the mean residence time to $5$ seconds would predict an occupancy of $10$, provided that the arrival rate remains unchanged and crowding can be neglected. A strong local accumulation can therefore reflect longer residence time, rather than faster production of completed <proteins>. At high occupancy, queues and collisions invalidate the independent-flow approximation; that failure is itself experimentally meaningful.
The connection with <autophagy> is methodological rather than a claim that these are one pathway: both questions ask how local molecular interactions produce a larger cellular behavior. His laboratory's stated <autophagy> questions concern where the membranes forming an <autophagosome> originate and how their assembly proceeds.<Hitoshi Nakatogawa laboratory spotlight at Tokyo Institute of Technology>[Research interest: membrane sources, autophagosome formation and experimental approaches]{ref}
\Image[https://educ.titech.ac.jp/bio/eng/news/img/news_12696_1.jpg]
{title=Hitoshi Nakatogawa}
{description=Named portrait in the institutional Nakatogawa Laboratory spotlight.}
{height=250}
Back to article page
