Junji Morokuma
Junji Morokuma worked in the Levin lab on the bioelectric control of body form. A 2008 paper with Morokuma as an author is cited for ion translocators in left-right organ placement and for bioelectric control of metastasis23. Morokuma also cared for the planarian colony1, co-authored a study of head shapes after gap junction block5, and was first author of a planarian spaceflight study6.
- Field
- researcher
- In the library
- 3 works, named in 9 passages elsewhere
Left-right patterning work
Later papers cite Morokuma et al. (2008) for a few specific points. Pai and colleagues list it among prior work showing that interfering with four ion translocators, two channels and two pumps, randomizes the position of organs along the left-right axis3. Durant and colleagues cite it for the H,K-ATPase in left-right patterning in frog, sea urchin and chick4. Chernet and colleagues cite it, with a 2011 paper, as showing that bioelectric gradients are implicated in the control of metastasis2.
Planarian colony and head shape
The Levin lab thanked Morokuma for planaria colony care in a 2010 behavior-platform paper1. Morokuma is also an author of the 2015 study in which octanol blocked gap junctions in Girardia dorotocephala. The treated worms grew heads that were measured against the heads of other species. Shape analysis showed the induced forms were closer to the wild-type forms they resembled than to the normal head of this species5.
Planaria after spaceflight
Morokuma led the 2017 study of planaria returned from space. Back on Earth, worms that had flown and Earth-only controls were fed and kept under the same conditions for two further months. The flown container held slightly fewer worms, and fragments cut before launch grew more slowly than controls6. Water temperature on the mission was not relayed during flight. A new set of control worms was then held at a temperature profile matched to the flown worms7.
Junji Morokuma and Wendy Beane for planaria colony care, and all of the members of the Levin lab for many useful discussions.
Blackiston D, Shomrat T, Nicolas CL, Granata C, Levin M, 2010 · A second-generation device for automated training and quantitative behavior… · open at passage 64Bioelectric gradients have already been implicated in the control of metastasis (Morokuma et al., 2008; Blackiston et al., 2011)
Chernet BT, Fields C, Levin M, 2014 · Long-range gap junctional signaling controls oncogene-mediated tumorigenesis in… · open at passage 7induces heterotaxia, the independent randomization of organ positioning along the LR axis (Adams et al., 2006; Aw et al., 2008, 2010; Levin et al., 2002; Morokuma et al., 2008).
Pai VP, Willocq V, Pitcairn EJ, Lemire JM, Paré JF, Shi NQ…, 2017 · HCN4 ion channel function is required for early events that regulate anatomical… · open at passage 7left−right patterning in embryonic frog, sea urchin, and chick (Levin et al. 2002; Duboc et al. 2005; Hibino et al. 2006; Aw et al. 2008; Morokuma et al. 2008).
Durant F, Lobo D, Hammelman J, Levin M, 2016 · Physiological controls of large-scale patterning in planarian regeneration: a… · open at passage 20Comparisons of the Procrustes distances between shape groups (Figure 2A, Table 1) showed that the experimentally derived morphologies were closer in shape to the wild-type morphologies they resembled
Emmons-Bell M, Durant F, Hammelman J, Bessonov N, Volpert…, 2015 · Gap Junctional Blockade Stochastically Induces Different Species-Specific Head… · open at passage 12We observed that the number of worms in the container that had gone to space was slightly less than the number of worms that remained on Earth
Morokuma J, Durant F, Williams KB, Finkelstein JM…, 2017 · Planarian regeneration in space: Persistent anatomical, behavioral, and… · open at passage 18After obtaining the space‐exposed worm water temperature information, a new set of ‘temperature‐matched’ Earth‐only control worms were kept in the same isolated conditions as before
Morokuma J, Durant F, Williams KB, Finkelstein JM…, 2017 · Planarian regeneration in space: Persistent anatomical, behavioral, and… · open at passage 12
2015
2015 · read
2017
2017 · read
2019
2019 · read