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Home > Tenured Faculties > Kaneda Masahiro

Tenured Faculties

Kaneda Masahiro

Affiliation Institute of Agriculture
Division Division of Animal Life Science
Research field Molecular Biology, Epigenetics, Developmental Biology
Keyword(S) Genomic Imprinting, DNA Methylation, Cancer
Url
Research experience

・2003.10-2005.3: Post-doc. Division of Human Genetics, National Institute of Genetics, Japan
・2005.4-2006.3: JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship for Research Abroad, The Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, U.K.
・2006.4-2007.9: Research Fellowship from Uehara Memorial Foundation, The Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, U.K.
・2007.10-2012.9: Researcher, Reproductive Biology and Technology Research Team, National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization
・2012.10-2017.9: Assistant Professor, Tokyo Univeristy of Agriculture and Technology
・2017.10-present:Associate Professor, Tokyo Univeristy of Agriculture and Technology (Tenured)

Educational background

・2000: D.V.M. (Doctor of Veterinary Medicine) Tokyo University of Agriculture & Technology, School of Veterinary Medicine
・2003: Ph.D. (Dr. of Science) The Graduate University for Advanced Studies

Awards

(At Oct. 2017)
・2005: The 21st Inoue Research Award for Young Scientists

Selected papers and publications

(At Oct. 2017)
・Kaneda M, Watanabe S, Akagi S, Inaba Y, Geshi M, Nagai T. Proper reprogramming of imprinted and non-imprinted genes in cloned cattle gametogenesis. Anim Sci J. (in press), 2017.
・Kaneda M, Takahashi M, Yamanaka KI, Saito K, Taniguchi M, Akagi S, Watanabe S, Nagai T. Epigenetic analysis of bovine parthenogenetic embryonic fibroblasts. J Reprod Dev. 63(4): 365-375, 2017.
・Fujita M and Kaneda M. DNA methylation inhibitor causes cell growth retardation and gene expression changes in feline lymphoma cells. J Vet Med Sci. 79(8): 1352-1358, 2017.
・Kaneda M., "Genomic imprinting in mammals—Epigenetic parental memories", Differentiation, 2011;82;51-56
・Yamanaka K., Kaneda M., Inaba Y., Saito K., Kubota K., Sakatani M., Sugimura S., Imai K., Watanabe S., and Takahashi M., "DNA methylation analysis on satellite I region in blastocysts obtained from somatic cell cloned cattle", Anim. Sci. J., 2011;82(4);523-530
・Kaneda M., Hirasawa R., Chiba H., Okano M., Li E., and Sasaki H., "Genetic evidence for Dnmt3a-dependent imprinting during oocyte growth obtained by conditional knockout with Zp3-Cre and complete exclusion of Dnmt3b by chimera formation", Genes to Cells, 2010;15(3);169-179
・Kaneda M., Tang F., O'Carroll D., Lao K., and Surani MA., "Essential role for Argonaute2 protein in mouse oogenesis", Epigenetics & Chromatin, 2009;2;9
・Hirasawa R., Chiba H., Kaneda M., Tajima S., Li E., Jaenisch R., and Sasaki H., "Maternal and zygotic Dnmt1 are necessary and sufficient for the maintenance of DNA methylation imprints during preimplantation development", Genes Dev., 2008;22;1607-1616
・Watanabe T., Totoki Y., Toyoda A., Kaneda M., Kuramochi-Miyagawa S., Obata Y., Chiba H., Kohara Y., Kono T., Nakano T., Surani MA., Sakaki Y., and Sasaki H., "Endogenous siRNAs from naturally formed dsRNAs regulate transcripts in mouse oocytes", Nature, 2008;453;539-543
・Kaneda M., and Sasaki H., "Genomic imprinting and X chromosome inactivation in germ cell development", Genetic and Epigenetic Control of Mammalian Germ Cell Development and Function, Research Signpost, 2008;37-56.
・Tang F.*, Kaneda M.*, O'Carroll D., Hajkova P., Barton SC., Sun AY, Lee C., Tarakhovsky A., Lao K., and Surani MA., "Maternal microRNAs are essential for mouse zygotic development", Genes Dev., 2007;21:644-648. (*:equally contributed authors)
・Kato Y., Kaneda M., Hata K., Kumaki K., Hisano M., Kohara Y., Okano M., Li E., Nozaki M., and Sasaki H., "Role of the Dnmt3 family in de novo methylation of imprinted and repetitive sequences during male germ cell development in the mouse", Hum. Mol. Genet., 2007;16;2272-2280
・Kaneda M., Okano M., Hata K., Sado T., Tsujimoto N., Li E., and Sasaki H., "Essential role for de novo DNA methyltransferase Dnmt3a in paternal and maternal imprinting", Nature, 2004;429:900-903

Research Description

Since the birth of the first cloned animal, "Dolly" the shepp in 1996, somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) technology was widely used and lost of cloned animals were born including mice, cattle, pigs, dog, cats, rabbits and horses. SCNT can be used for a lot of fields as written in above, however, the low percentage of the birth rate (5-10%) was not yet completely solved. The reason is belived to be "epigenetics" erros. Epigenetics controls gene expression by not mutating DNA itself, but changing DNA methylation and hisotne modifications. So, I'm concentrating on epigenetic modifications in cloned cattle to improve cloning efficiency.
Another research topic now I'm starting is epigenetic aspects of cancers in small animals (dogs and cats). As the life time of dogs and cats are rapidly increasing in Japan, the same situation to human occurs in dogs and cats. That is cancer. In human, epigenetic error in cancer is important for diagnosis and treatment, however, little is known in dogs and cats. I would like to analyze cancer epigenetics in dogs and cats.

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About TUAT's tenure-track program

Tenure Track Program in TUAT is quite a good program to support young researchers for setting up their own laboratories. And the tenure position is already kept, it means that no need to compete with other tenure track researchres, just with myself. However, the laboratory space is restricted and not enough (and really depends on the situation of the departement we belong) and grant from JSPS is sometimes difficult to buy usual products like FAX machines.

Future aspirations

Beef and milk products from cloned cattle are not yet sold in the market, because of low success rate and law comprehension of consumers. But SCNT technology is very useful to copy high quality cattle and to preserve endangered animals. And also for medical application, SCNT technology is a very powerful method to create genetically modified animals, including domestic animals. I would like to contribute to improve this technology all over the world from Japan.