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Masayuki Onishi

Assistant Professor of Biology
Biology
130 Science Dr., Box 90338, Durham, NC 27708
124 Science Dr., FFSC 3105, Durham, NC 27708

Selected Publications


Alternative proteoforms and proteoform-dependent assemblies in humans and plants.

Journal Article Molecular systems biology · August 2024 The variability of proteins at the sequence level creates an enormous potential for proteome complexity. Exploring the depths and limits of this complexity is an ongoing goal in biology. Here, we systematically survey human and plant high-throughput bottom ... Full text Cite

Chlamydomonas.

Journal Article Current biology : CB · July 2024 Tulin et al. introduce Chlamydomonas, a unicellular green alga commonly used as a microbial reference system for plants and animals. ... Full text Cite

Chloroplast Methyltransferase Homolog RMT2 is Involved in Photosystem I Biogenesis.

Journal Article bioRxiv · April 5, 2024 Oxygen (O2), a dominant element in the atmosphere and essential for most life on Earth, is produced by the photosynthetic oxidation of water. However, metabolic activity can cause accumulation of reactive O2 species (ROS) and severe cell damage. To identif ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Evolutionary Origins and Ancestral Features of Septins.

Journal Article bioRxiv · March 27, 2024 Septins are a family of membrane-associated cytoskeletal GTPases that play crucial roles in various cellular processes, such as cell division, phagocytosis, and organelle fission. Despite their importance, the evolutionary origins and ancestral function of ... Full text Link to item Cite

The evolutionary origins and ancestral features of septins.

Journal Article Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · January 2024 Featured Publication Septins are a family of membrane-associated cytoskeletal guanine-nucleotide binding proteins that play crucial roles in various cellular processes, such as cell division, phagocytosis, and organelle fission. Despite their importance, the evolutionary origi ... Full text Cite

A chloroplast protein atlas reveals punctate structures and spatial organization of biosynthetic pathways.

Journal Article Cell · August 2023 Chloroplasts are eukaryotic photosynthetic organelles that drive the global carbon cycle. Despite their importance, our understanding of their protein composition, function, and spatial organization remains limited. Here, we determined the localizations of ... Full text Cite

The cellular cytoskeleton

Chapter · January 1, 2023 This chapter discusses the three cytoskeletal elements found in the cell body of Chlamydomonas; they are microtubules, filamentous (F-) actin, and septin. For microtubules and F-actin, it covers the multiple structures formed during vegetative growth and c ... Full text Cite

Control of division in Chlamydomonas by cyclin B/CDKB1 and the anaphase-promoting complex.

Journal Article PLoS genetics · August 2022 In yeast and animals, cyclin B binds and activates the cyclin-dependent kinase ('CDK') CDK1 to drive entry into mitosis. We show that CYCB1, the sole cyclin B in Chlamydomonas, activates the plant-specific CDKB1 rather than the CDK1 ortholog CDKA1, confirm ... Full text Cite

Systematic characterization of gene function in the photosynthetic alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

Journal Article Nature genetics · May 2022 Most genes in photosynthetic organisms remain functionally uncharacterized. Here, using a barcoded mutant library of the model eukaryotic alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, we determined the phenotypes of more than 58,000 mutants under more than 121 different ... Full text Cite

Insights into coral bleaching under heat stress from analysis of gene expression in a sea anemone model system.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · November 2020 Featured Publication Loss of endosymbiotic algae ("bleaching") under heat stress has become a major problem for reef-building corals worldwide. To identify genes that might be involved in triggering or executing bleaching, or in protecting corals from it, we used RNAseq to ana ... Full text Cite

Cleavage-furrow formation without F-actin in Chlamydomonas.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · August 2020 Featured Publication It is widely believed that cleavage-furrow formation during cytokinesis is driven by the contraction of a ring containing F-actin and type-II myosin. However, even in cells that have such rings, they are not always essential for furrow formation. Moreover, ... Full text Cite

Systematic characterization of gene function in a photosynthetic organism

Journal Article bioRxiv · January 1, 2020 Photosynthetic organisms are essential for human life, yet most of their genes remain functionally uncharacterized. Single-celled photosynthetic model systems have the potential to accelerate our ability to connect genes to functions. Here, using a barcode ... Full text Link to item Cite

Transfer of the Septin Ring to Cytokinetic Remnants in ER Stress Directs Age-Sensitive Cell-Cycle Re-entry.

Journal Article Developmental cell · October 2019 During cell division, the inheritance of a functional endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is ensured by the endoplasmic reticulum stress surveillance (ERSU) pathway. Activation of ERSU causes the septin ring to mislocalize, which blocks ER inheritance and cytokines ... Full text Cite

F-actin homeostasis through transcriptional regulation and proteasome-mediated proteolysis.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · July 2018 Featured Publication Many organisms possess multiple and often divergent actins whose regulation and roles are not understood in detail. For example, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii has both a conventional actin (IDA5) and a highly divergent one (NAP1); only IDA5 is expressed ... Full text Cite