Back Tsunetsugu-yokota, Yasuko

Tsunetsugu-Yokota, Yasuko

Infection Biology Lab, DCEXS
Visiting Professor

University Education:

  • 1983: PhD, Immunology, Graduate School of Medical Science, University of Tokyo 
  • 1978: Medical doctor (MD), School of Medicine, Okayama University 

Professional Positions:

  • Since 2014: Professor

  • 1994-2014: Laboratory head, Department of Immunology, National Institute of Infectious Diseases

    (former National Institute of Health, Japan)

  • 1994: Visiting Scientist, Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene, University of Freiburg (Dr. Andreas Meyerhans)

  • 1992-1994: Senior Scientist

  • 1989: Visiting Scientist, Department of Retrovirus-associated diseases, INSERM, Marseille, France (Dr. Jean-Claude Chermann)

  • 1985-1992: Junior Scientist

  • 1983-1985: Postdoctoral fellow, University of California at Los Angeles

Research lines

My main research was to understand the mechanism of HIV-1-associated immune deficiency. All players in anti-viral immune responses, including CD4+ T cells, macrophages and dendritic cells are targets of HIV-1. In early years before some of restriction factors in dendritic cells are identified, we found the low virus productivity of monocyte-derived dendritic cells (MDDCs) in HIV-1 infection (published in 1995). Now it is well known that antigen-presenting cells such as dendritic cells are required to activate antigen-specific T cells. I believe that the mode of HIV-1 infection in dendritic cells and the efficient transmission from dendritic cells to T cells during antigen presentation give the strongest impact on immunopathogenesis of HIV-1 infection. This may be also true in immunopathogenesis in various virus infections.
Recently, we have established the "humanized mouse" model for the study of human-tropic virus infections including HIV-1 and measles virus. By utilizing the in vivo humanized mouse model and in vitro experiments using primary human cells, our research now focuses on the study of generation and maintenance of latent infection of HIV-1.
To understand how human immune cells interact with viruses or virus infected cells is an attractive theme for me in the field of basic medical science.

Publications

Kobayashi-Ishihara, M., Takahashi, H., Ohnishi, K., Nishimura, K., Terahara, K., Ato, M., Itamura, S., Kageyama, T., Tsunetsugu-Yokota, Y.; Broad Cross-Reactive Epitopes of the H5N1 Influenza Virus Ide ntified by Murine Antibodies Against the A/Vietnam/1194/2004 Hemagglutinin. PLoS One, in press.

Nomaguchi, M., Miyake,A., Doi, N., Fujiwara, S., Miyazaki, Y., Tsunetsugu-Yokota, Y., Yokoyama, M., Sato, H., Masuda, T., Adachi, A. Natural single-nucleotide polymorphisms in the 3' region of HIV-1 pol gene modulate viral replication ability. J.Virol.88:4145, 2014.

Ikeno, S., Suzuki, M., Muhsen, M., Ishige, M., Kobayashi-Ishihara, M., Ohno, S., Takeda, M., Nakayama, T., Morikawa, Y., Terahara, K., Okada, S., Takeyama, H., Tsunetsugu-Yokota, Y.; Sensitive detection of measles virus infection in the blood and tissues of humanized mouse by one-step Qquantitative RT-PCR. Front. Microbiol.4:1-8, 2013.

Tsunetsugu-Yokota, Y and Muhsen, M. Development of human dendritic cells and their role in HIV infection: antiviral immunity versus HIV transmission. Front. Microbiol. 4:1-10, 2013.

Yamashita, Y., Hoshino, Y., Oka, M., Matsumoto, S., Ariga, H., Nagai, H., Makino, M., Ariyoshi, K., Tsunetsugu-Yokota, Y.: Multicolor flow cytometric analyses of CD4+ T cell responses to Mycobacterium tuberculosis-related latent antigens. JIID, 3:207-215, 2013

Terahara, K., Ishige, M., Ikeno, S., Mitsuki, Y-y, Okada, S., Kobayashi, K. and    Tsunetsugu-Yokota, Y.: Expansion of activated memory CD4+ T cells affects infectivity of CCR5-tropic HIV-1 in humanized NOD/SCID/JAK3null mice. PLoS One, 8:e53495, 2013

Tsunetsugu-Yokota, Y. and Terahara, K: Receptor usage and the pathogenesis in acute and chronic virus infections. Editorial, Front. Microbiol.3:289, 2012

Mitsuki,Y-Y., Terahara, K., Shibusawa,K., Yamamoto, T., Tsuchiya,T., Ishige, M., Kobayashi, K., Morikawa, Y., Nakayama, T., Takeda, M., Yanagi, Y., and Tsunetsugu-Yokota, Y. HIV-1 infection ex vivo accelerates measles virus infection by upregulating signaling lymphocytic activation molecule (SLAM) in CD4+ T cells. J. Virol. 86:7227-7234, 2012

Sugimoto,C., Nakamura,S., Hagen,S.I., Tsunetsugu-Yokota,Y., Villinger,F., Ansari,A.A., Suzuki, Y., Yamamoto,N., Nagai,Y., Picker,L.J., Mori, K.:Glycosylation of SIV influences immune-tissue targeting during primary infection that leads to immunodeficiency or viral control J. Virol. 86:9323-9336, 2012

Nomura, T., Yamamoto, H., Shiino, T., Takahashi, N., Nakane, T., Iwamoto, N., Ishii, H., Tstukamoto, T., Kawada, M., Matsuoka, S., Takeda, A., Terahara, K., Tsunetsugu-Yokota, Y., Iwata-Yoshikawa, N., Hasegawa, H., Sata, T., Naruse, T.K., Kimura, A., Matano, T. Association of major hitocompatibility complex class I haplotypes with disease progression after simian immunodeficiency virus challenge in Burmese rhesus macaques. J.Virol. 86:6481-6490, 2012

Takeuchi, K., Nagata, N., Kato, S., Ami, Y., Suzaki, Y., Suzuki, T., Sato, Y., Tsunetsugu-Yokota, Y., Mori, K., Nguyen, V. N., Kimura, H., and Nagata, K. (2012). Wild-type measles virus with the hemagglutinin protein of the Edmonston vaccine strain retains wild-type tropism in macaques. J. Virol 86:3027-3037, 2012

Terahara, K., Yamamoto, T., Mitsuki, Y-y, Shibusawa, K., Ishige, M., Mizukoshi, F., Kobayashi, K., and Tsunetsugu-Yokota, Y.: Fluorescent reporter signals, EGFP and DsRed, encoded in HIV-1 facilitate the detection of productively infected cells and cell-associated viral replication levels. Front. Microbiol. 2: 1-11, 2012

Ohnishi, K., Takahashi, Y., Kono, N., Nakajima, N., Mizukoshi, F., Misawa, S., Yamamoto, T., Mitsuki, Y-Y., Fu, S-I., Hirayama, N., Ohshima, M., Ato, M., Kageyama, T., Odagiri, T., Tashiro, M., Kobayashi, K., Itamura, S., and Tsunetsugu-Yokota, Y. Newly established monoclonal antibodies for immunological detection of H5N1 influenza virus, Jp.J.Infect.Dis. 65: 19-27, 2012