958 results match your criteria: "Max-Planck Institute of Biophysics[Affiliation]"
Cell Death Dis
January 2025
CECAD Cluster of Excellence, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
Constitutive mitochondrial dynamics ensure quality control and metabolic fitness of cells, and their dysregulation has been implicated in various human diseases. The large GTPase Dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1) is intimately involved in mediating constitutive mitochondrial fission and has been implicated in mitochondrial cell death pathways. During ferroptosis, a recently identified type of regulated necrosis driven by excessive lipid peroxidation, mitochondrial fragmentation has been observed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Struct Mol Biol
January 2025
Department of Structural Biology, Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
The nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) dehydrogenase (NDH) complex is crucial for photosynthetic cyclic electron flow and respiration, transferring electrons from ferredoxin to plastoquinone while transporting H across the chloroplast membrane. This process boosts adenosine triphosphate production, regardless of NADPH levels. In flowering plants, NDH forms a supercomplex with photosystem I, enhancing its stability under high light.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Adv
January 2025
Department of Cell Biology, Blavatnik Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Lysosomal storage diseases (LSDs) comprise ~50 monogenic disorders marked by the buildup of cellular material in lysosomes, yet systematic global molecular phenotyping of proteins and lipids is lacking. We present a nanoflow-based multiomic single-shot technology (nMOST) workflow that quantifies HeLa cell proteomes and lipidomes from over two dozen LSD mutants. Global cross-correlation analysis between lipids and proteins identified autophagy defects, notably the accumulation of ferritinophagy substrates and receptors, especially in and mutants, where lysosomes accumulate cholesterol.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCell
January 2025
Department of Molecular Sociology, Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, Max-von-Laue-Straße 3, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Institute of Biochemistry, Goethe University Frankfurt, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Electronic address:
Upon infection, human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) releases its cone-shaped capsid into the cytoplasm of infected T cells and macrophages. The capsid enters the nuclear pore complex (NPC), driven by interactions with numerous phenylalanine-glycine (FG)-repeat nucleoporins (FG-Nups). Whether NPCs structurally adapt to capsid passage and whether capsids are modified during passage remains unknown, however.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Med Chem
January 2025
Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas "Margarita Salas"-CSIC, Ramiro de Maeztu 9, 28040 Madrid, Spain.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease without effective treatment. The progressive motoneuron death in ALS is associated with alterations in lipid metabolism. As its regulation occurs in mitochondria-associated endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membranes (MAMs), modulation of mitochondria-ER contacts (MERCs) is emerging as a crucial factor in MAM formation and lipid metabolism control.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Cell Biol
January 2025
Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, ZBMZ, Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
Autophagy is a key cellular quality control mechanism. Nutrient stress triggers bulk autophagy, which nonselectively degrades cytoplasmic material upon formation and liquid-liquid phase separation of the autophagy-related gene 1 (Atg1) complex. In contrast, selective autophagy eliminates protein aggregates, damaged organelles and other cargoes that are targeted by an autophagy receptor.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCells
December 2024
Biomedical Institute for Multimorbidity, Hull York Medical School, University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, UK.
Granule secretion is an essential platelet function that contributes not only to haemostasis but also to wound healing, inflammation, and atherosclerosis. Granule secretion from platelets is facilitated, at least in part, by Soluble N-ethylmaleimide-Sensitive Factor (NSF) Attachment Protein Receptor (SNARE) complex-mediated granule fusion. Although α-synuclein is a protein known to modulate the assembly of the SNARE complex in other cells, its role in platelet function remains poorly understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMol Cell
December 2024
Department of Molecular Sociology, Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, Max-von-Laue-Straße 3, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Institute of Biochemistry, Goethe University Frankfurt, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Electronic address:
Changing environmental conditions necessitate rapid adaptation of cytoplasmic and nuclear volumes. We use the slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum, known for its ability to tolerate extreme changes in osmolarity, to assess which role nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) play in achieving nuclear volume adaptation and relieving mechanical stress. We capitalize on the unique properties of D.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Mol Graph Model
March 2025
School of Life Sciences, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015, Switzerland. Electronic address:
MolecularWebXR is a new web-based platform for education, science communication and scientific peer discussion in chemistry and biology, based on modern web-based Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). With no installs as it is all web-served, MolecularWebXR enables multiple users to simultaneously explore, communicate and discuss concepts about chemistry and biology in immersive 3D environments, by manipulating and passing around objects with their bare hands and pointing at different elements with natural hand gestures. Users may either be present in the same physical space or distributed around the world, in the latter case talking naturally with each other thanks to built-in audio.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMethods Mol Biol
December 2024
Department of Structural Biology, Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
F-type Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) synthase is a membrane-bound macromolecular complex, which is responsible for the synthesis of ATP, the universal energy source in living cells. This enzyme uses the proton- or sodium-motive force to power ATP synthesis by a unique rotary mechanism and can also operate in reverse, ATP hydrolysis, to generate ion gradients across membranes. The FF-ATP synthases from bacteria consist of eight different structural subunits, forming a complex of ~550 kDa in size.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEMBO J
December 2024
DNA Motors Group, MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS), Du Cane Road, London, W12 0HS, UK.
During mitosis, the condensin I and II complexes compact chromatin into chromosomes. Loss of the chromokinesin, KIF4A, results in reduced condensin I association with chromosomes, but the molecular mechanism behind this phenotype is unknown. In this study, we reveal that KIF4A binds directly to the human condensin I HAWK subunit, NCAPG, via a conserved disordered short linear motif (SLiM) located in its C-terminal tail.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Chem Theory Comput
December 2024
Department of Theoretical Biophysics, Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, Max-von-Laue-Straße 3, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Nature
January 2025
Department of Molecular Sociology, Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, Frankfurt, Germany.
The ring-shaped chaperonin T-complex protein ring complex (TRiC; also known as chaperonin containing TCP-1, CCT) is an ATP-driven protein-folding machine that is essential for maintenance of cellular homeostasis. Its dysfunction is related to cancer and neurodegenerative disease. Despite its importance, how TRiC works in the cell remains unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAutophagy
January 2025
School of Medicine, Institute of Biochemistry II, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) are crucial to homeostatic and organellar remodeling pathways. In reticulophagy/ER-phagy, long cytosolic IDR-containing receptors (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
December 2024
Structural and Molecular Microbiology, Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (VIB)-Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) Center for Structural Biology, Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie, Brussels 1050, Belgium.
is a spore-forming gram-positive bacterium responsible for anthrax, an infectious disease with a high mortality rate and a target of concern due to bioterrorism and long-term site contamination. The entire surface of vegetative cells in exponential or stationary growth phase is covered in proteinaceous arrays called S-layers, composed of Sap or EA1 protein, respectively. The Sap S-layer represents an important virulence factor and cell envelope support structure whose paracrystalline nature is essential for its function.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Commun
December 2024
Redox and Metalloprotein Research Group, Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, Max-von-Laue-Str. 3, 60438, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Iron-sulfur (FeS) protein biogenesis in eukaryotes begins with the de novo assembly of [2Fe-2S] clusters by the mitochondrial core iron-sulfur cluster assembly (ISC) complex. This complex comprises the scaffold protein ISCU2, the cysteine desulfurase subcomplex NFS1-ISD11-ACP1, the allosteric activator frataxin (FXN) and the electron donor ferredoxin-2 (FDX2). The structural interaction of FDX2 with the complex remains unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMol Cell
January 2025
Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Electronic address:
Structural maintenance of chromosomes (SMC) complexes play pivotal roles in genome organization and maintenance across all domains of life. In prokaryotes, SMC-family Wadjet complexes structurally resemble the widespread MukBEF but serve a defensive role by inhibiting plasmid transformation. We previously showed that Wadjet specifically cleaves plasmid DNA; however, the molecular mechanism underlying plasmid recognition remains unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCell Chem Biol
November 2024
Institute of Biochemistry II, Medical Faculty, Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main and Buchmann Institute for Molecular Life Sciences, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, Max-von-Laue-Strasse 3, 60439 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Electronic address:
Curr Opin Genet Dev
February 2025
Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Electronic address:
Genomic DNA inside the cell's nucleus is highly organized and tightly controlled by the structural maintenance of chromosomes (SMC) protein complexes. These complexes fold genomes by creating and processively enlarging loops, a process called loop extrusion. After more than a decade of accumulating indirect evidence, recent in vitro single-molecule studies confirmed loop extrusion as an evolutionarily conserved function among eukaryotic and prokaryotic SMCs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIUCrJ
January 2025
Structural Biology Division, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia.
Most mitochondrial precursor proteins are encoded in the cell nucleus and synthesized on cytoplasmic ribosomes. The translocase of the outer membrane (TOM) is the main protein-import pore of mitochondria, recognizing nascent precursors of mitochondrially targeted proteins and transferring them across the outer membrane. A 3.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Chem Theory Comput
November 2024
Department of Theoretical Biophysics, Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, Max-von-Laue Straße 3, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Sugar molecules play important roles as mediators of biomolecular interactions in cellular functions, disease, and infections. Molecular dynamics simulations are an indispensable tool to explore these interactions at the molecular level. The large time and length scales involved frequently necessitate the use of coarse-grained representations, which heavily depend on the parametrization of sugar-protein interactions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFbioRxiv
October 2024
Department of Neurobiology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA.
Cell
December 2024
Institute of Biochemistry II, Goethe University Frankfurt, Medical Faculty, Theodor-Stern-Kai 7, 60590 Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Buchmann Institute for Molecular Life Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Riedberg Campus, Max-von-Laue-Straße 15, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, Goethe University Frankfurt, Riedberg Campus, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Electronic address:
The autophagy-lysosome system directs the degradation of a wide variety of cargo and is also involved in tumor progression. Here, we show that the immunity-related GTPase family Q protein (IRGQ), an uncharacterized protein to date, acts in the quality control of major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC class I) molecules. IRGQ directs misfolded MHC class I toward lysosomal degradation through its binding mode to GABARAPL2 and LC3B.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
October 2024
Goethe University Frankfurt, School of Medicine, Institute of Biochemistry II, Frankfurt am Main 60590, Germany.
Intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) play a pivotal role in organellar remodeling. They transduce signals across membranes, scaffold signaling complexes, and mediate vesicular traffic. Their functions are regulated by constraining conformational ensembles through specific intra- and intermolecular interactions, physical tethering, and posttranslational modifications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Methods
December 2024
Redox and Metalloprotein Research Group, Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, Frankfurt, Germany.
For macromolecular structures determined by cryogenic electron microscopy, no technique currently exists for mapping elements to defined locations, leading to errors in the assignment of metals and other ions, cofactors, substrates, inhibitors and lipids that play essential roles in activity and regulation. Elemental mapping in the electron microscope is well established for dose-tolerant samples but is challenging for biological samples, especially in a cryo-preserved state. Here we combine electron energy-loss spectroscopy with single-particle image processing to allow elemental mapping in cryo-preserved macromolecular complexes.
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