Masahiro Morita
Biochemist at UT Health San Antonio who studies how mTORC1 controls protein synthesis, mRNA decay and mitochondria, and how these links go wrong in cancer and metabolic disease
Associate Professor, Department of Molecular Medicine and Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies, UT Health San Antonio · postdoc in cancer metabolism, McGill University (Nahum Sonenberg lab) · postdoc in medical sciences, University of Tokyo · PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of Tokyo (2008)
Portrait: UT Health San Antonio
Masahiro Morita is the first author of MOR2013, a Cell Metabolism paper from Nahum Sonenberg's lab at McGill University. mTORC1, the growth-control complex, was known to switch on protein synthesis. The study showed that it also builds up and powers mitochondria, the cell's power plants, by raising the translation of messenger RNAs for mitochondrial proteins. It does this through the 4E-BP proteins, brakes on translation that mTORC1 switches off. In simple terms, when mTORC1 is active the cell makes more of the parts it needs to produce energy for growth. The work was done in cultured cells and mice.
The paper won Morita a McGill MedStar Award in 2015 as a postdoctoral fellow. A 2017 Molecular Cell paper, also with Sonenberg, followed the same thread: mTORC1 raises translation of MTFP1, a protein that drives mitochondrial fission, and when mTOR is blocked the mitochondria fuse into long networks that help cells survive.
Morita earned a BS, MS and PhD at the University of Tokyo, finishing the PhD in 2008, and did postdoctoral work there before moving to McGill. In Tokyo Morita worked with Tadashi Yamamoto on the CCR4-NOT complex, which shortens the poly(A) tails of mRNAs and so speeds their decay. Morita is now an associate professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine and the Barshop Institute at UT Health San Antonio, where the lab studies how mTOR signalling, mRNA translation and decay, and mitochondrial dynamics contribute to cancer and metabolic disease, including the role of CCR4-NOT in metabolic disorders.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | M | mTORC1 controls mitochondrial activity and biogenesis through 4E-BP-dependent translational regulation MOR2013 First author: showed that mTORC1 drives mitochondrial biogenesis and activity by raising the translation of mitochondria-related mRNAs through the 4E-BPs. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 2
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Masahiro Morita.
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- Julie St-Pierre Biochemist and Vice-President, Research and Innovation at the University of Ottawa who studies how cancer cells adapt their metabolism, and a co-author on McGill work linking mTORC1 to mitochondria and to rapamycin-induced fatty liver
- Nahum Sonenberg Co-discovered the mRNA cap-binding protein eIF4E and the 4E-BP proteins that restrain it, and showed how mTOR releases this brake to control protein synthesis
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