SATO BAN    Department   Undergraduate School  , School of Agriculture    Position   Assistant Professor
Research Period	2011/04～2016/03
Research Topic	Regulatory mechanisms of neuronal activity by chondroitin sulfate chains
Research Type	KAKENHI Research
Consignor	Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Research Program Type	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (Research in a proposed research area)
KAKENHI Grant No.	23110003
Representative Person	Kitagawa Hiroshi
Collaborative Researcher	NADANAKA Satomi, MIKAMI Tadahisa, MIYATA Shinji, SATO Ban, HIRAOKA Syuichi, KITAZAWA Kazuyuki
Details	Chondroitin sulfate (CS), a major component of the brain extracellular matrix, is reported to play a role in controlling critical period plasticity. Digestion of CS chains has shown to restore visual cortical plasticity in adult animals, but the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. CS chain is a linear polysaccharide consisting of repeating disaccharide units that can be substituted with sulfate groups at various positions, thereby producing characteristic sulfation patterns. Thus we hypothesized that sulfation patterns of CS chains regulate the critical period plasticity. Using transgenic mouse model overexpressing chondroitin 6-sulfotransferase-1, we found that a developmental increase in the 4-sulfation/6-sulfation ratio of CS chains leads to the termination of the critical period in the mouse visual cortex. These results suggest that specific sulfation patterns of CS chains regulate the maturation of parvalbumin-expressing interneurons.