Chikako Suzuki

Structural biologist from Gerhard Wagner's Harvard lab who showed how the tumour suppressor PDCD4 grabs the helicase eIF4A to block the start of protein synthesis

Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School (papers with Gerhard Wagner, 2008–2009)

Chikako Suzuki is the first author of SUZ2008, a PNAS paper from Gerhard Wagner's lab at Harvard Medical School. To start making a protein, the cell must unwind the front end of a messenger RNA. The helicase eIF4A does the unwinding, helped by the scaffold protein eIF4G. PDCD4 is a tumour suppressor that blocks this step, and mTORC1 signalling, through S6 kinase, marks PDCD4 for destruction so that translation can go ahead.

Using x-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy and binding measurements on purified proteins, the team showed that both MA3 domains of PDCD4 bind the front part of eIF4A. In doing so PDCD4 competes with eIF4G and with RNA for the same helicase. This explains in physical terms how PDCD4 slows the start of translation. The work is on purified proteins, so it shows a mechanism, not an effect in cells or animals.

Suzuki is also a co-author of a 2009 Cell paper from the same lab, with Nahum Sonenberg's group, that mapped how eIF4A, eIF4G and eIF4H fit together into a working helicase complex. Because this is a common name, only papers shared with Wagner were counted. No later record could be tied to this person, so the current position is not known and the affiliation shown is the one on the Atlas paper.

Milestones in the Atlas

A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.

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