Akio Kitao

Off-target-free chemogenetic platform that decodes physiological roles of target GPCRs

The paper introduces an off-target-free chemogenetic platform to study GPCR functions, demonstrating its application on the adenosine A2A receptor and showing its generalizability to other class A GPCRs.

A single conserved residue in FlhA couples export gate activation to substrate specificity switching

This study identifies a conserved residue in FlhA that couples export gate activation to substrate specificity switching in bacterial flagellar assembly.

Native receptor-targeted chemogenetics enables cell-type-specific inhibition of endogenous receptors in freely moving mice

This paper introduces NARCH, a chemogenetic method to reversibly inhibit endogenous receptors in specific cell types in vivo, demonstrating its use in studying mGlu1 signaling in Purkinje cells.