Team Director
Shunsuke Tagami Ph.D.

Laboratory for Advanced Biomolecular Engineering

[Affiliation has changed to RIKEN Center for Integrated Medical Sciences (IMS) as of April 2025]

LocationYokohama

E-mailshunsuke.tagami@riken.jp

Overview
Selected Publications
Members
News

What’s New

Jul. 15, 2025 Research

Going to equal lengths to find proteins that bind to bioactive molecules

We are developing biomacromolecules that control enzymes and cells

Our team aims to engineer functional bio-macromolecules applicable to medical and basic biological researches, by integrating technologies in synthetic and structural biology including in vitro reconstruction of target protein complexes, in vitro evolution of protein/RNA, X-ray crystallography, and structure based protein engineering. We are also trying to experimentally reconstruct evolutionary pathway from primordial peptides to elaborate proteins.

Research Theme

We are engineering peptides that control cells and enzymes for use in medical and basic science.
We are trying to experimentally reconstruct evolutional pathway from primordial peptides to elaborate proteins.

Selected Publications

Yagi S, Tagami S.
An ancestral fold reveals the evolutionary link between RNA polymerase and ribosomal proteins
Nature Communications (2024) doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-50013-9

Chaban A, Minakhin L, Goldobina E, et al.
Tail-tape-fused virion and non-virion RNA polymerases of a thermophilic virus with an extremely long tail
Nature Communications (2024) doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-44630-z

Mohri K, Huynh Nhat KP, Zouda M, et al.
Lasso peptide microcin J25 variant containing RGD motif as a PET probe for integrin αvβ3 in tumor imaging
European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.ejps.2022.106339

Alfi A, Popov A, Kumar A, et al.
Cell-Free Mutant Analysis Combined with Structure Prediction of a Lasso Peptide Biosynthetic Protease B2
ACS Synthetic Biology (2022) doi: 10.1021/acssynbio.2c00176

Li P, Holliger P, Tagami S.
Hydrophobic-cationic peptides modulate RNA polymerase ribozyme activity by accretion
Nature Communications 13, 3050 (2022) doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-30590-3

Yagi S, Padhi AK, Vucinic J, et al.
Seven Amino Acid Types Suffice to Create the Core Fold of RNA Polymerase.
Journal of the American Chemical Society (2021) doi: 10.1021/jacs.1c05367

Sumida T, Dubiley S, Wilcox B, et al.
Structural Basis of Leader Peptide Recognition in Lasso Peptide Biosynthesis Pathway.
ACS Chemical Biology., 14(7), 1619-1627 (2019) doi: 10.1021/acschembio.9b00348

Tagami S, Attwater J, Holliger P.
Simple peptides derived from the ribosomal core potentiate RNA polymerase ribozyme function.
Nature Chemistry 9, 325-332 (2017) doi: 10.1038/nchem.2739

Tagami S, Sekine S, Minakhin L, et al.
Structural basis for promoter specificity switching of RNA polymerase by a phage factor.
Genes & Development 28(5), 521-531 (2014) doi: 10.1101/gad.233916.113

Tagami S, Sekine S, Kumarevel T, et al.
Crystal structure of bacterial RNA polymerase bound with a transcription inhibitor protein.
Nature 468(7326), 978-982 (2010) doi: 10.1038/nature09573