Part I　 12:00 – 12:25
Title:
Regulation of cellular energy balance by epigenetic factors

Shinjiro Hino
Department of Medical Cell Biology, IMEG, Kumamoto University

Abstract:
In a multicellular organism, many types of cells with diverse biological properties exist, even though they share an identical genotype. It is now widely accepted that such cell identity is maintained through the formation of epigenomic signatures such as DNA methylation, histone modifications and spatio-temporal chromatin organization.
As a part of cell identity, energy strategy of cells has to be determined depending on their biological functions and the nutritional environment. Thus, an intriguing possibility is that environmental and/or cell intrinsic cues affect the epigenetic machinery to form an epigenome, which in turn determines the metabolic phenotype of the cell.
We recently found that a histone lysine demethylase, LSD1, regulates the energy utilization in murine adipose cells. LSD1 mainly removes methyl groups from methylated histone H3 lysine 4, thus negatively influences the transcription. We identified that the regulators of mitochondrial respiration including PGC-1 α were the repressive targets of LSD1. Accordingly, disruption of LSD1 using RNAi and chemical inhibitors resulted in an increase of mitochondrial oxidative metabolism. We further found the cellular- and nutritional- state dependent regulation of metabolic genes by LSD1.
Our findings highlight a molecular basis of how cells establish and maintain the energy strategy in response to environmental and metabolic stimuli.

I will also introduce a shared instrument in IMEG called “Extracellular Flux Analyzer, XF-24”, which enables the realtime monitoring of cellular energy flow.

Part II　　12:25 – 13:00
We are planning a special arrangement about the seminar on Sep. 5th.
At the first half, Dr. Hino will present their recent work in English. Dr.
Hino will also introduce Flux analyzer, a recently-installed equipment in IMEG.
Later on, we will have a technical seminar, which introduces our equipment including cell sorters, microscopy, and image analyzers.
The technical seminar will be presented in Japanese.