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Toshifumi Mori Last modified date：2024.04.10

Associate Professor / Department of Applied Molecular Chemistry
Institute for Materials Chemistry and Engineering


Graduate School
Department of Interdisciplinary Engineering Sciences
Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering Sciences
Undergraduate School
School of Engineering


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Homepage
https://kyushu-u.elsevierpure.com/en/persons/toshifumi-mori
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Mori Group, Institute for Materials Chemistry and Engineering (Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering Sciences) .
https://kyushu-u.pure.elsevier.com/en/persons/toshifumi-mori
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Academic Degree
Ph. D. (Science)
Country of degree conferring institution (Overseas)
No
Field of Specialization
Physical Chemistry, Theoretical Chemistry, Biophysics
ORCID(Open Researcher and Contributor ID)
0000-0003-4982-4820
Total Priod of education and research career in the foreign country
03years08months
Outline Activities
Conformational dynamics and fluctuations are essential for molecules to react and function in condensed phase. As molecular understanding of these motions are difficult to reach via experiments, our lab use computer simulations and theoretical analyses to study chemical reactions and conformational transitions of molecules in solution. The goal is to elucidate the molecular mechanisms that lead to functions of biomolecules and macromolecules. We also develop theoretical approaches to reveal the hierarchy of events that occur in condensed phase.
Research
Research Interests
  • Molecular origin of conformational dynamics in condensed phase reactions and functions
    keyword : theoretical chemistry, molecular simulation, condensed phase reaction, conformational dynamics
    2021.05.
Academic Activities
Papers
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1. Toshifumi Mori, Shinji Saito, Molecular Insights into the Intrinsic Dynamics and Their Roles During Catalysis in Pin1 Peptidyl-prolyl Isomerase, The Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 10.1021/acs.jpcb.2c02095, 126, 5185-5193, 2022.07.
2. Conformational Excitation and Nonequilibrium Transition Facilitate Enzymatic Reactions: Application to Pin1 Peptidyl-Prolyl Isomerase.
Presentations
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1. Toshifumi Mori, Dissecting the heterogeneous dynamics of proteins during folding and catalysis, Telluride Science Research Center Protein Dynamics Workshop 2023, 2023.07.
2. 森 俊文, Role of dynamics in conformational transitions and functions of biomolecules, 日本化学会第102春季大会, 2022.03, Structural fluctuations and conformational transitions of proteins have been realized to be essential for protein functions. Yet, how these dynamic aspects of proteins contribute to functions often remains elusive. We have been working towards understanding how enzymes adapt to different stages of the catalytic cycle by adjusting their conformations, and have been focusing on unveiling the conformational dynamics of enzymes. In this talk, by mainly focusing on the peptidyl-prolyl isomerization reaction catalyzed by Pin1, we discuss the molecular mechanism of catalytic reaction from two perspectives. Molecular dynamics simulations with replica exchange umbrella sampling and transition path sampling methods are applied to reveal the static and dynamic mechanisms of the reaction, respectively. From a static view, enzyme lowers the free energy barrier of isomerization with rearrangements in ligand-enzyme interactions along the reaction coordinate . From the dynamic view, on the contrary,　the isomerization occurs in a short timescale, which turns out to be too rapid for the ligand-enzyme interactions to reorganize to equilibrium . These results indicate that the dynamics of　the enzyme plays a role prior to the reaction step by preparing a reactive environment, i.e., as　conformational excited states. The origin of these slow protein dynamics, which has also been　discussed by an NMR experiment , and how it seemingly couples to the enzymatic reaction cycle will also be discussed..
Membership in Academic Society
  • The Molecular Simulation Society of Japan
  • The Biophysical Society of Japan
  • Japan Society of Molecular Science
Awards
  • WATOC 2008 Poster Prize
  • 14th ICQC Poster Prize
  • Early Career Presentation Award
  • Young Scientist Award


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