Food Science
CHIKAZAWA Miho
Starting year 2022
Meijo University
Faculty of Agriculture
Assistant Professor
Research Areas：Life Science
Environmental Science/Agriculture Science
Research fields
Research Interests
Antibody
Lifestyle-related disease
Food factor
Professional Memberships
Japan Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Agrochemistry
Japan Society of Nutrition and Food Science
The Japanese Biochemical Society
Main research topics
Antibodies are molecules constantly secreted in the blood and intestinal tract, which work to prevent infections and remove foreign antigens. We have been studying the health effects of food components through activation of the immune system, focusing on antibodies. We have shown that small molecules derived from food components generate antigenic structures (epitopes) that are recognized by innate antibodies in vivo and induce the production of natural antibodies by moderately activating the innate immune system. (Chikazawa et al., J. Biol. Chem., 2013).
In the blood and intestinal tract, there are antibodies that recognize various antigens, including pathogens and other foreign substances. The overall picture of this antibody population with various specificities is called the “antibody repertoire”. Various stimuli to the body, such as food components, intestinal bacteria, and disease, are expected to affect the specificity of antibodies, thereby causing changes in the antibody repertoire and affecting health status.
Promoting antibody production is thought to be useful in maintaining health, and several food components that increase the production of intestinal antibodies have been reported, but it remains unclear how the antibody repertoire is altered by food components. Based on previous studies, we predicted that “diet regulates antibody specificity, and changes in antibody repertoire may affect health status and diseases,” and by clarifying the relationship between diet, diseases, and antibody repertoire, we aim to make it possible to improve health and prevent diseases by modulating antibody repertoire with food.
Representative papers
Chikazawa M, Yoshitake J, Lim SY, Iwata S, Negishi L, Shibata T, Uchida K. “Glycolaldehyde is an endogenous source of lysine N-pyrrolation.”J. Biol. Chem., 295: 7697-7709, 2020
Chikazawa M, Otaki N, Shibata T, Miyashita H, Kawai Y, Maruyama S, Toyokuni S,Kitaura Y, Matsuda T, Uchida K. “Multispecificity of immunoglobulin M antibodies raised against advanced glycation end products – involvement of electronegative
potential of antigens.” J. Biol. Chem., 288: 13204–13214, 2013
Research URL
researchmap
https://researchmap.jp/chikazawamiho