Welcome to Aoki Lab !

We are approaching the physiological and pathological functions of lipids based on the advanced mass spectrometry technology.

Biological membranes are composed of more than 1,000 species of lipid molecules, and each of them is thought to have a specific function. Recently, some functions of lipids have been elucidated, and it is becoming clear that lipid molecules play important roles in physiological situations such as reproduction, development, angiogenesis, and cell proliferation, and in pathological processes such as cancer and fibrosis development. On the other hand, the progress of mass spectrometry has revealed that there are more lipid molecules which have unknown function in the body. Unlike proteins, lipid molecules are not encoded by genes and lipid synthesis usually involves multiple proteins. Therefore, investigating the function of certain lipids is much more difficult than that of proteins. For this reason, there are many lipids whose function has not been identified.

We are trying to clarifying the functions of various phospholipids with the latest technologies including mass spectrometry and mass spectrometry imaging. Now, we are challenging to

(1) Reveal physiological and pathological functions of lysophospholipids that work via GPCR

(2) Discover the novel lipid GPCR ligands

(3) Identify the novel molecules involved in phospholipid biosynthesis and homeostasis, and elucidating their functions.

It is becoming clear that abnormalities in lipid metabolism are involved in many diseases, and expected that the research results will be applied to drug discovery and biomarker discovery.