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Kotani Lab
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The lab explores the beginnings of life through the maternal factors stored in the egg.
AboutAbout the lab
The wonder of an entire individual arising from a single cell
The Kotani Lab studies how a fertilized egg develops into an individual, using maternal factors as a starting point.
More than 10,000 kinds of factors are stored in the oocyte, and fertilization and the development that follows proceed through their actions.
Using zebrafish and mice, the lab investigates when and where maternal factors act, and how they are regulated.
Using a technology that visualizes mRNA with high sensitivity, the lab tracks the structures mRNA takes in the cytoplasm and the switching of translation.
Key terms
- Maternal factors
- Factors stored in the oocyte that act to drive fertilization and the development that follows.
- Translation
- The process in which proteins are made based on the information in mRNA. It occurs after transcription.
- Oocyte
- An egg cell that is still growing in the ovary. When it matures, it becomes an egg that can be fertilized.
NewsLab news
Paper accepted by Cell Reports
Paper from a collaboration with the Uehara Lab accepted
Paper accepted by FEBS Letters
Paper accepted by Biological Procedures Online
A student received the Best Presenter Award
ResearchResearch themes
A fertilized egg has everything needed to create an individual. Using genetics, cell biology, and biochemistry, the lab examines the maternal factors stored in oocytes in order to uncover how animal individuals are born.
*Illustrative imageFinding new maternal factors
The lab creates maternal-effect mutants using transposons, which are mobile genetic elements, and searches for new maternal factors through screening. So far, it has identified genes involved in cell-cell interactions and somite formation.
*Illustrative imagemRNA structure and the switching of translation
In oocytes, mRNAs whose translation is repressed are stored in the cytoplasm in granule-like structures. The lab found that translation begins when these structures dissolve and the mRNA spreads out, and is investigating the mechanism behind this.
MembersFaculty
The Kotani Lab consists of faculty members, doctoral, master's, and undergraduate students, and auditing students.As of 2025
- Associate ProfessorTomoya Kotani
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Danio rerio port” Soulkeeper / Public domain (cropped)
- Finding new maternal factors: “Zebrafish Yolk ( )” Daniel Castranova, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH / Public domain (cropped)
- mRNA structure and the switching of translation: “Ribosome (NIH BioArt )” Courtesy of NIAID Ryan Kissinger / Public domain (cropped)
- Related lab (Koshikawa Lab): “Dguttifera” MA Hanson / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Kuroiwa-Chikami-Yang Lab): “Chicken embryo” Mjeltsch / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Naramoto Lab): “Arabidopsis thaliana kz07” Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Chiba Lab): “A thaliana” Safflle / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
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