Yoshinori Ohsumi Research Articles

A REVIEW ON UPAVASA: THE ANCIENT INDIAN FASTING RITUAL FOR SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL WELLBEING

Ayurveda is the science of life. It offers advice on how to keep healthy people well and how to treat sick people's problems. Fasting is one of the ten langhana (those that promote lightness of the body) therapies and one of the daivavyapashraya (spiritual) therapies in Ayurveda. Ayurveda also claims that fasting stimulates the digestive system and results in the digestion of ama-dosha (metabolic poisons). Upavasa is a means to come closer to the all-powerful from a spiritual and yogic perspective. Fasting stimulates autophagy, according to scientists. In 2016, Yoshinori Ohsumi, a Japanese cell scientist, won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his studies on autophagy, a process through which cells recycle and regenerate their contents. Numerous research that has been published suggests that fasting has benefits for neuroprotection and ageing.

Autophagy from Siddhars Perspective in Preventing Non-Communicable Diseases- A Review

Siddha system of medicine is one of the ancient medicines in the AYUSH system of medicines. It described the prevention and cure of disease through the ways of "Naal Ozhukkam" (daily regimen) and "Kaala Ozhukkam” (seasonal regimen). Fasting (Pattini) is one of these practices of Naal Ozhukkam. In 2016, a Japanese man named Mr. Yoshinori Ohsumi got his Noble Prize for finding the mechanism behind autophagy. Fasting is the most efficient method of activating autophagy. This review showed fasting in our Siddha literature and autophagy from Siddhars perspective in preventing non-communicable diseases. In our Siddha literature, it says that the uses of fasting are to rest our digestive organs, remove toxins and waste products from our bodies, and refresh our body cells. Autophagy is the body’s way of eliminating damaged cells in order to regenerate newer, healthier cells. Recent research has indicated roles for autophagy in an increasing number of pathologies, from bacterial and viral infections to cancer, and more recently in neurodegenerative and other age-related diseases. But during their period, Siddhars treat fever and some other diseases by fasting. By this method, they prevent non-communicable diseases. As a result, we must lead the Siddhars' ideas by performing Naal ozhukkam and Kaala Ozhukkam to prevent non-communicable diseases.

Interview with Yoshinori Ohsumi by Satoru Ohtake

Interview with Yoshinori Ohsumi by Satoru Ohtake

Management of Paediatric Fatty Liver Disease by Intermittent Fasting – a Pilot study

Background and Objectives: Paediatric Fatty Liver Disease (PFLD) is a potentially progressive condition and presently is the leading cause of paediatric chronic liver disease in developed country. A diet and lifestyle change(DLS) is the mainstay of management but long term-compliance is always questionable. Fasting for a significant period /day to treat metabolic syndromes got popular since Yoshinori Ohsumi won the Nobel for his research on Fasting and Autophagy. This is yet to be tested in Paediatric population.

Role of Intermittent Fasting, Calorie Restriction and Autophagy in Healthy Aging: A Review of Literature

Aging is a progressive process associated with decline in structure and function, hindered maintenance and repair systems, increased vulnerability to disease and death, and reduced reproductive capacity. Healthy aging can be prolonged by calorie limitation or by pharmacologic agents that mimic the effects of caloric restriction. Both fasting and the genetic inactivation of nutrient signaling converge on the induction of autophagy, a cytoplasmic recycling process that counteracts the age-associated accumulation of damaged organelles and proteins as it improves the metabolic fitness of cells. Holy Quran made it compulsory for all healthy adult Muslim to fast during Arabic month of Ramadan from early dawn to dusk. Believers of other religions also have the tradition of fasting as religious rituals in different way. The importance offasting and the autophagy process was highlighted very recently by Prof. Yoshinori Ohsumi, a Noble prize winner in medicine for his pioneering studies revealing the mechanisms of autophagy in baker’s yeast 30 years ago. Here we made literature search to review experimental findings on intermittent fasting (IF) and autophagy that influences the major nutrient and growthrelated signaling pathways as well as the up regulation of anti-aging pathways.
 Bangladesh Journal of Neuroscience 2019; Vol. 35 (1): 39-45

Role of Autophagy in Breast Cancer Development and Progression: Opposite Sides of theSame Coin.

The term "autophagy", which means "self (auto) - eating (phagy)", describes a catabolic process that is evolutionarially conserved among all eukaryotes. Although autophagy is mainly accepted as a cell survival mechanism, it also modulates the process known as "type II cell death". AKT/mTOR pathway is an upstream activator of autophagy and it is tightly regulated by the ATG (autophagy-related genes) signaling cascade. In addition, wide ranging cell signaling pathways and non-coding RNAs played essential roles in the control of autophagy. Autophagy is closely related to pathological processes such as neurodegenerative diseases and cancer as well as physiological conditions. After the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2016 was awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi "for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy", there was an explosion in the field of autophagy and molecular biologists started to pay considerable attention to the mechanistic insights related to autophagy in different diseases. Since autophagy behaved dualistically, both as a cell death and a cell survival mechanism, it opened new horizons for a deeper analysis of cell type and context dependent behavior of autophagy in different types of cancers. There are numerous studies showing that the induction of autophagy mechanism will promote survival of cancer cells. Since autophagy is mainly a mechanism to keep the cells alive, it may protect breast cancer cells against stress conditions such as starvation and hypoxia. For these reasons, autophagy was noted to be instrumental in metastasis and drug resistance. In this chapter we have emphasized on role of role of autophagy in breast cancer. Additionally we have partitioned this chapter into exciting role of microRNAs in modulation of autophagy in breast cancer. We have also comprehensively summarized how TRAIL-mediated signaling and autophagy operated in breast cancer cells.

History and Current Status of Autophagy Research.

Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved process in which eukaryotic bilayer membrane vesicles enclose intracellular contents and transport them to lysosomes for degradation. In the 1990s, Ohsumi et al. identified multiple autophagy-related genes in a yeast model. Functional homologues of almost all yeast autophagy-related genes were found in higher eukaryotes. In 2003, Klionsky et al. named these genes the Atg genes and studied the interactions between the proteins they encoded and their functions in autophagy. In April 2005, a new journal, Autophagy, was published that was edited by Klionsky. The number of autophagy research papers indexed by PubMed has increased each year. In 2016, Yoshinori Ohsumi won the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for his discovery of the autophagy mechanism. Autophagy has thus become a hot research area, which involves biology, medicine, botany and microbiology. Many researchers are actively exploring the relationship between non-selective and selective autophagy and various pathophysiological states in humans, and are studying the molecular mechanisms underlying autophagy regulation in various biological conditions, including cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular diseases, immune responses, development and ageing. This chapter focuses on the history and current status of autophagy research and highlights the milestones that contributed to the development of the field.

The role of autophagy in cancer - characterization of crosstalk between apoptosis and autophagy; autophagy as a new therapeutic strategy in glioblastoma.

The Noble Assembly decided to award the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Yoshinori Ohsumi for his discoveries of mechanisms of autophagy, a fundamental process for degrading and recycling cellular components. His discoveries opened a path to understanding the fundamental importance of autophagy in many physiological processes, such as adaptation to starvation or response to infection. Mutations in autophagy genes can cause disease, and the autophagic process is involved in several conditions including cancer and neurological disease. It shows the importance of autophagy research, as many questions remain open. The main aim of our research presented here was to better understand the role of autophagy in cancer. Here, we present articles concerning correct monitoring autophagy in cancer cells, characterization of the molecular links between autophagy and apoptosis and analysis of autophagy as a new therapeutic strategy in glioma.

AUTOPHAGY; Recent Advances in Health and Disease

Macroautophagy (autophagy) meaning self-eating is an evolutionary conserved intracellular degradation pathway, during which autophagosomes envelop bulk cytosol, unwanted or damaged organelles and misfolded proteins to handle them to the lysosomes for breakdown. There are many types of autophagy, which differ mainly in the site of cargo sequestration and in the type of cargo itself. The process of autophagy is a model in which autophagic vesicles develop into mature degradative autophagolysosomes in a series of distinguished steps namely: initiation, nucleation, expansion, maturation then finally degradation. The discovery of definitive biological markers for autophagy by the Japanese, Nobel Prize-awarded cell biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi and the advances in visualizing techniques enabled further insight of this vital process. Autophagy takes place at a low basal level constitutively, and can be potently induced by various types of stress conditions, such as starvation, hypoxia, pathogen invasion, and exercise. The functional relationship between apoptosis and autophagy is complex. Under certain circumstances, autophagy constitutes a stress adaptation that avoids cell death (and suppresses apoptosis), whereas in other cellular events, it constitutes an alternative cell-death pathway. Recently, autophagy dysfunction is linked to severe diseases such as neurodegeneration and cancer. Control of autophagy promises to facilitate the development of therapeutic and preventive measures for these morbid diseases for the well-being of mankind.

Casma debuts to boost autophagy

Casma Therapeutics has launched with $58.5 million in funding from Third Rock Ventures to pursue drugs that can enhance autophagy, the process used to break down and recycle cellular components. Researchers have long known that cells lasso dysfunctional or aging components into a vesicle that is sent to the lysosome for degradation. But the particulars of that process have only recently come to light. In 2016, Japanese cell biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work to tease apart how autophagy works in bacteria. Casma’s founders have built on that research to identify the key players in mammalian cells. Casma will try to translate those insights into drugs that can boost autophagy. The company is first focusing on a collection of rare genetic diseases called lysosomal storage disorders (LSD). People with LSDs are missing an enzyme that breaks down a key protein or peptide,

Autophagy: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine’ 16 to the Intra-Cellular Suicidal Process

Yoshinori Ohsumi from Tokyo Institute of Technology of Japan had received the prestigious Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2016 for discovering the mechanism of cell’s self-eating autophagy, which is remarkable research in itself for cellular suicidal mediated cell recycling.

Fusion and scission of membranes: Ubiquitous topological transformations in cells.

The 2016 Nobel Prizes were awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi for autophagy and to David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz for topological transitions. Both of these phenomena are intrinsically related when it comes to membranes. Here, we give a brief account on topological transformations of lipid membranes, commonly known as membrane fusion and membrane scission, and introduce the underlying topological invariant, the genus. The genus of a shape is a useful concept to distinguish unambiguously the processes of membrane fusion/scission and offers a simple method to describe complex, cellular membrane structures, such as fenestrated cristae. We distinguish and highlight the connection between topological transformations of lipid membranes and the recent awards, and point out the extraordinarily large number of topological changes during autophagy.

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2016

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2016 was awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy [1].

2016 Nobel Prize Winner Yoshinori Ohsumi; Solving the Mystery of Autophagy

In 2016, Dr. Yoshinori Ohsumi accomplished an incredible feat: he received the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology as a single recipient. Awarded once a year to up to 3 individuals who made a significant contribution to the scientific community, this Nobel Prize is the most well known, and arguably the most prestigious prize for those studying the human body.

Profile: Yoshinori Ohsumi: The rise and rise of a biology superstar

Nobel laureate Yoshinori Ohsumi's persistent study of baker's yeast spawned an exciting new field, and proves the value of supporting scientists in pursuit of their passion

The exponential growth of autophagy-related research: from the humble yeast to the Nobel Prize.

Autophagy was discovered more than half a century ago. In the early days, autophagy was studied mostly through the use of biochemical methods and electron microscopy. In the 1990s, yeast genetics was introduced to this field and brought about an exponential expansion. The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was eventually awarded to the scientist who spearheaded the rapid development of the field: Yoshinori Ohsumi. Here, I describe in a Nutshell how the autophagy machinery was discovered and how the autophagy research field has grown following the breakthroughs from yeast studies.

The Autophagic Machinery in Viral Exocytosis.

The discovery of the molecular machinery of autophagy, namely Atg proteins, was awarded with the Nobel prize in physiology and medicine to Yoshinori Ohsumi in 2016. While this machinery was originally identified by its ability to allow cells to survive starvation via lysosomal degradation to recycle cellular components, it has recently become apparent that it also is used by cells to secrete cytoplasmic constituents. Furthermore, viruses have learned to use this Atg supported exocytosis to exit cells, acquire envelopes in the cytosol and select lipids into their surrounding membranes that might allow for increased robustness of their virions and altered infection behavior. Along these lines, picornaviruses exit infected cells in packages wrapped into autophagic membranes, herpesviruses recruit autophagic membranes into their envelopes and para- as well as orthomyxoviruses redirect autophagic membranes to the cell membrane, which increases the robustness of their envelope that they acquire at this site. These recent findings open a new exciting field on the regulation of degradation vs. release of autophagic membranes and will be discussed in this minireview.

Autophagy as a universal intracellular process. A comment on the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to molecular biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi for his work in the field of autophagy (Greek for “self eating”). This fact has once again directed the attention of many scientists to a common cellular phenomenon occurring in all eukaryotes from yeast to mammals, namely the process by which the cell digests and then recycles its components. Although the phenomenon of autophagy was discovered in mammals, a method for monitoring it by light microscopy was established in the unicellular eukaryote, the buddingy east Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The article describes the achievements of the Nobel Laureate, the mechanism of autophagy and its role in the cell physiology of organisms including the unicellular pathogen, the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii.

Yeasts for Global Happiness: report of the 14th International Congress on Yeasts (ICY14) held in Awaji Island.

The 14th International Congress on Yeasts (ICY14) was held at Awaji Yumebutai International Conference Center (Awaji, Hyogo) in Japan from 11 to 15 September 2016. The main slogan of ICY14 was 'Yeasts for Global Happiness', which enabled us to acknowledge the high-potential usefulness of yeasts contributing to the global happiness in terms of food/beverage, health/medicine and energy/environment industries, as well as to basic biosciences. In addition, two more concepts were introduced: 'from Japan to the world' and 'from senior to junior'. As it was the first ICY meeting held in Japan or other Asian countries, ICY14 provided a good opportunity to widely spread the great achievements by Japanese and Asian yeast researchers, such as those by the 2016 Nobel Laureate Dr. Yoshinori Ohsumi, and also, to convey the fun and importance of yeasts to the next generation of researchers from Asia and all over the world. As a result, a total of 426 yeast lovers from 42 countries (225 overseas and 201 domestic participants) with different generations attended ICY14 to share the latest knowledge of a wide range of yeast research fields and to join active and constructive scientific discussions.

Analysis for Science Librarians of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: The Life and Work of Yoshinori Ohsumi

ABSTRACTAutophagy is a cellular process of destruction and recycling. Cellular materials are broken down and recycled as needed, providing the body a way to remove unwanted material while also providing the means to create new needed items. The importance of this process and its possible role in numerous diseases is why Yoshinori Ohsumi has been awarded a 2016 Noble Prize. Ohsumi has been awarded the 2016 Nobel in Physiology or Medicine for his “discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy and thus paving the way for the exciting field of autophagy research” (Nobelprize.org “Press release: The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.”).