Yugo Kitazawa: The Plant Cell First Author

Yugo Kitazawa, first author of “A phytoplasma effector acts as a ubiquitin-like mediator between floral MADS-box proteins and proteasome shuttle proteins”

Current Position: Postdoctoral Fellow, Laboratory of Plant Pathology, Department of Agricultural and Environmental Biology, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo

Education: Ph.D. in Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Japan

Non-scientific Interests: Reading, Exercise, Martial art

Brief bio: My research field is plant pathology, such as analysis of pathogenic mechanism and disease diagnosis. In my post-doc life, I especially studied pathogenicity of phytopathogenic bacteria phytoplasmas, which induce unique symptoms that dramatically change plant appearance, such as phyllody (transformation of floral organs into leaf-like structures), stunting, and purple-top in diverse plants. Here, I obtained an opportunity to introduce very interesting function of “phyllogen”, a family of phyllody-inducing protein secreted from phytoplasmas: phyllogen induced ubiquitin-independent proteasomal degradation of target host proteins. This achievement was made possible by the efforts of all the authors, not just me. I appreciate this opportunity to present our efforts.