Hideki Uchikawa, M.D., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral research fellow

Education
Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, Japan, 2008 (Ph.D.)
Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Japan, 1998 (M.D.)

Lab
Shinichi Takayama

Research Interests
I am studying the function of Bcl-2-associated athanogene (BAG) family proteins, especially BAG3, in muscle.

BAG3 is the co-chaperone protein that binds and regulates Hsp 70-family molecular chaperones. BAG3 knockout mice result in fulminant myopathy. BAG3 knockdown in C2C12 myoblasts results in increased apoptosis and over-expression of BAG3 in C2C12 myoblasts induces hypertrophy in myotubes. Recently, mutation in BAG3 has been identified in myofibrillar myopathies patients.

Recent Publications
Uchikawa H, Fujii K, Kohno Y, Katsumata N, Nagao K, Yamada M, Miyashita T. U7 snRNA-mediated correction of aberrant splicing caused by activation of cryptic splice sites. J Hum Genet. 2007;52(11):891-7.

Uchikawa H, Toyoda M, Nagao K, Miyauchi H, Nishikawa R, Fujii K, Kohno Y, Yamada M, Miyashita T. Brain- and heart-specific Patched-1 containing exon 12b is a dominant negative isoform and is expressed in medulloblastomas. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2006;349(1):277-83.

Contact Details:
email: uchikawa@bbri.org, tel. 617-658-7867