Radiation Biology Team
Laboratory Head: Tomoko ABE (D.Agr.)
The radiation biology team carries out on studies various biological effects of fast heavy ions. It is also involved in the development of a new technique to breed plants by heavy-ion irradiation. Fast heavy ions can cause dense and localized ionization of matter along their tracks, in contrast to photons X-rays and γ-rays, which cause randomly distributed isolated ionization. The localized, dense ionization can cause double-strand DNA breaks in cells induced by; these breaks are not easily repaired, and they result in more effective mutation than that single-strand DNA breaks. A unique feature of our experimental facility at the RIKEN Ring Cyclotron (RRC) is that living bodies in helps them the atmosphere or bottles can be irradiated since the delivered heavy-ion beams have sufficiently high energy that penetrate matter to a significant depth. The radiation biology team utilizes a dedicated beam line (E5B) of the RRC to irradiate microbes, plants, and animals with a wide variety of ion beams, ranging from C to Fe. The research subjects include physiological studies on DNA repair, genome analyses of mutation, and mutation breeding of plants by heavy-ion irradiation. Some new cultivars have already been introduced in the market.
- Biological effects caused by heavy-ion irradiation
- Ion-beam breeding and genome analysis
- Innovative applications of heavy-ion beams
- January 14, 2010
- New cherry blossom tree blooms in all four seasons
- April 16, 2008
- Producing a new 'white-colored pink' species by treatment of pink seeds with carbon ion beam irradiation
(Olivia Pure White is now on sale, a new species transformed from a stunted pink)
- October 31, 2007
- 'Nishina Zao,' a yellow sakura cherry tree born in the RIBF
- February 15, 2008
- Creating novel plants using heavy-ion beams
- Hirayama R., Ito A., Tomita M., Tsukada T., Yatagai F., Noguchi M., Matsumoto Y., Kase Y., Ando K., Okayasu R., Furusawa Y.:
"Contributions of direct and indirect actions in cell killing by high-LET radiations"
Radiation Research 171 212-218 (2009) - Shimada S., Ogawa T., Kitagawa S., Suzuki T., Ikari C., Shitsukawa N., Abe T., Kawahigashi T., Kikuchi R., Handa H., and Murai K.:
"A genetic network of flowering-time genes in wheat leaves, in which an APETALA1/FRUITFULL-like gene, VRN1, is upstream of FLOWERING LOCUS T"
Plant J. 58, 668-681 (2009) - Kikuchi S., Saito Y., Ryuto H., Fukunishi N., Abe T., Tanaka H. and Tsujimoto H.:
"Effects of heavy-ion beams on chromosomes of common wheat, Triticum aestivum"
Mutation Res. 57, 194-202 (2009) - Niwa K., Hayashi Y., Abe T. and Aruga Y.:
"Induction and isolation of pigmentation mutants of Porphyra yezoensis (Bangiales, Rhodophyta) by heavy-ion beam irradiation"
Phycol. Res. 57, 194-202 (2009) - Nakano M., Amano J., Watanabe Y., Nomizu T., Suzuki M., Mizunashi K., Mori S., Kuwayama S., Han D., Saito H., Ryuto H., Fukunishi N., and Abe T.:
"Morphological variation in Tricyrtis hirta plants regenerated from heavy ion beam-irradiated embryogenic calluses"
Plant Biotech., 27, 155-160 (2010) - Y. Kazama, T. Hirano, H. Saito, Y. Liu, S. Ohbu, Y. Hayashi, T. Abe,:
"Characterization of highly efficient heavy-ion mutagenesis in Arabidopsis thaliana"
BMC Plant Biol., 11, 161 (2011) - Niwa K., Yamamoto T., Furuita H. and Abe T.:
"Mutation breeding in the marine crop Porphyra yezoensis (Bangiales, Rhodophyta): Cultivation experiment of the artificial red mutant isolated by heavy-ion beam mutagenesis"
Aquaculture 314, 182-187 (2011) - Yasui Y., Mori M., Aii J., Abe T., Matsumoto D., Sato S., Hayashi Y., Ohnishi O. and Ota T.:
"S-LOCUS EARLY FLOWERING 3 is Exclusively Present in the Genomes of Shortstyled Buckwheat Plants that Exhibit Heteromorphic Self-incompatibility"
PLoS ONE, 7(2), e31264 (2012) - Abe T., Ryuto H. and Fukunishi N.:
"Ion beam radiation mutagenesis"
in Plant Mutation Breeding and Biotechnology (Shu, Q.Y., ed.), The Joint FAO/IAEA Programme, pp. 95-102 (2012)
Principal Investigator
- Tomoko ABE
- Laboratory Head
Staff Scientist
- Teruyo TSUKADA
- Senior Research Scientist
- Masako IZUMI
- Senior Research Scientist
Postdoctoral Fellow
- Yusuke KAZAMA
- Special Postdoctoral Researcher
Student Trainee
- Liqiu MA
- Junior Research Associate
Technical Assistant
- Yoriko HAYASHI
- Technical Staff I
- Sachiko KOGURE
- Technical Staff I
- Sumie OHBU
- Technical Staff II