Dr. Kensuke Miyake
Associate Professor
Institute of Research, Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU)

Biosketch:

Dr. Kensuke Miyake is an associate professor at Institute of Research, Tokyo Medical and Dental University in Tokyo, Japan. Following the completion of Ph.D. at the same university, Dr. Miyake has been engaged in research on immune responses and allergies, focusing extensively on basophils, an exceptionally rare type of immune cell. The numerous studies conducted by Dr. Miyake have contributed to unraveling the role, differentiation, and maturation processes of basophils within the body. The valuable findings from Dr. Miyake’s research are expected to significantly enhance our understanding of the pathophysiology of allergy-related inflammation, contribute to preventing parasitic infections, and the development of novel therapeutic approaches involving basophils.

Title of Talk:

"Differentiation trajectory and regulatory functions of basophils identified by single-cell RNA-seq analysis."

Abstract:

Basophils are the least common granulocytes which account for less than 1% of peripheral blood leukocytes in both mice and humans. Even though basophils were discovered in more than 140 years ago, the functional significance of basophils had long been an enigma, partly due to their rarity and their similarity with tissue-resident mast cells. The development of analytical tools for basophils in these 10 years has enabled us to understand non-redundant roles of basophils in various immune reactions, including the induction of chronic allergic inflammation and protective immunity against parasites. Nevertheless, the differentiation trajectory and the regulatory functions of basophils remains to be understood. We have recently conducted highly sensitive single-cell RNA-sequence analysis and identified previously unrecognized basophil precursor cells named pre-basophils (Miyake, Ito. et al. Nat Commun. 2023). Moreover, single-cell transcriptomics of basophil-dependent skin allergic inflammation have revealed that basophil-derived IL-4 promotes the differentiation from classical monocytes into pro-resolving macrophages with high capacity of apoptotic cell clearance. (Miyake et al. Nat Commun. in press). In this seminar, I will talk about the recent advancements in basophil biology clarified by single-cell RNA-seq analysis.