Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi form mutualistic associations with more than 80% of all land plants. This symbiotic interaction is established by a strict controlled exchange of signals whereby the fungus also needs to repress the plantU+2019s defense respon
Organisms across all kingdoms of life crucially rely on the high-energy metabolite acetyl-CoA in the cellular cytosol to fuel
pivotal biochemical processes such as fatty acid and cholesterol synthesis, and protein acetylation. However, the metabolic
availability of acetyl-CoA is by no means a sinecure. Acting as a metabolic hub, ATP citrate lyase (ACL) harnesses the
hydrolysis of ATP and metabolically generated citrate and ...
Cells have developed diverse mechanisms to protect themselves from acute damage by environmental stresses, such as nutrient or growth factor deprivation, oxidative stress and DNAdamage. In all these responses, stress-regulated protein kinases and phosphatases are commonly involved. Protein Phosphatase 2A (PP2A) is a major cellular phosphatase with pleiotropic functions, including in stress signaling. Here, we aim to investigate how cellular ...
Regulatory RNAs play important roles in the control of gene expression. A major scientific milestone in the study of regulatory small (s)RNAs was the discovery of RNA interference (RNAi), which resulted in the Nobel Prize for Fire and Mello (2006). This process is triggered by double stranded RNA and results in sequence-specific post-transcriptional gene silencing. In insects, the most speciose class of animals, RNAi constitutes the main ...
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is progressive neurodegenerative disorder estimated to affect more than 150 million people by 2050. γ-Secretases (GSECs) are proteases which embedded in the membrane cut several substrates, including the amyloid precursor protein (APP). This cleavage process gained considerable scientific interest as more than 200 mutations in GSEC and around 20 in APP, cause early onset AD. We have recently found that AD-causing ...
Cyclic nucleotide-modulated ion channels are molecular electric switches that open in response to binding of cyclic AMP or cyclic GMP, which are universal second messengers. The human genome encodes two different classes of cyclic nucleotide-modulated ion channels, namely the cyclic nucleotide-gated (CNG) ion channels and the hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-sensitive (HCN) ion channels. Both classes of ion channels have a ...
P-type transport ATPases are a large family of transport proteins that use ATP to drive the transport of a ligand from one side of a cellular membrane to the other. Of the five subfamilies (P1-5), P1-3 members represent ion or proton transporters, while P4 ATPases translocate lipids between membrane leaflets. The transport function of the five human P5-type ATPases, ATP13A1-5, is not yet established, despite their connections to diseases like ...
Living systems use nanoscale organization to compartmentalize and guide the chemical processes occurring inside them. This spatiotemporal heterogeneity is thought to be a key concept for e.g. signaling specificity, yet is difficult to study as it can only be measured in the intact cell. However, at the current state of the art it is difficult to measure chemical (signaling) processes at high spatiotemporal resolution, or to measure whole-cell ...
Plants suffer from all kinds of biotic and abiotic stress conditions, which are often regulated by the plant hormone ethylene. One of the most enigmatic abiotic stress responses is epinasty, which is the downwards bending of the leaves. Leaf epinasty is observed in many important crops including tomato, and is often the result of root hypoxia and/or salinity stress. Our preliminary results have showed that epinasty is developmentally ...