Molecular tower guard

How a protein helps the cell with nutrient deficiencies

10-Aug-2023 - Be it in thin air in the mountains or due to constricted blood vessels as well as lung diseases: One of the ways the body reacts to a lack of oxygen is through the formation of the protein HIF-1α, which coordinates adaptation to the reduced supply of oxygen. However, this protein also plays an ...

The armorers: How dendritic cells activate the immune system

Thanks to this “armoring function”, dendritic cells constitute a ray of hope for personalized immunotherapy

18-Jul-2023 - As part of the immune system, dendritic cells are essential for fighting body cells that have degenerated or are infected with a virus. They trigger an immune response by presenting protein fragments, for example of viruses, to T cells. In so doing, they activate the latter so that these ...

Antibodies prevent cell infection

The findings are important for the development of new drugs against highly resistant infectious agents

25-Oct-2022 - Using bacteria of the Bartonella henselae species, researchers from Goethe University, Frankfurt University Hospital, the Paul Ehrlich Federal Institute for Vaccines and Biomedicines in Langen, and the University of Oslo demonstrated for the first time that antibodies can prevent certain surface ...

Molecular chaperones caught in flagrante

X-ray structure analysis shows how MHC I molecules are prepared for peptide loading

04-Oct-2022 - For an adequate immune response, it is essential that T lymphocytes recognise infected or degenerated cells. They do so by means of antigenic peptides, which these cells present with the help of specialised surface molecules (MHC I molecules). Using X-ray structure analysis, a research team from ...

In slow motion against antibiotic resistance

How novel therapeutics provide insight into bacteria membranes

20-May-2021 - Whether bacteria are resistant to antibiotics is often decided at the cell membrane. This is where antibiotics can be blocked on their way into the cell interior or catapulted from the inside to the outside. Macrocyclic peptides, a novel class of antibiotics, bioactive cytotoxins and inhibitors, ...

Pharmaceutical research: when active substance and target protein “embrace” each other

29-Jan-2021 - Scientists at Goethe University Frankfurt, together with colleagues from Darmstadt, Heidelberg, Oxford and Dundee (UK), have investigated how the fit of potent inhibitors to their binding sites can be optimised so that they engage longer with their target proteins. Long target residency has been ...

How smart, ultrathin nanosheets go fishing for proteins

Faster and simpler production of high-resolution, three-dimensional electron microscopy images of biomolecules

21-Jul-2020 - An interdisciplinary team from Frankfurt and Jena has developed a kind of bait with which to fish protein complexes out of mixtures. Thanks to this “bait”, the desired protein is available much faster for further examination in the electron microscope. The research team has christened this ...

Toxin responsible for Legionella growth identified

24-Jul-2019 - A team of scientists led by EMBL group leader Sagar Bhogaraju and Ivan Dikic of Goethe University, Frankfurt, discovered that the toxin SidJ in Legionella bacteria enforces a unique modification on human proteins and helps legionella grow inside human cells. SidJ hijacks human protein Calmodulin ...

RNA: a vicious pathway to cancer?

16-Aug-2017 - According to the current doctrine, cancer cells develop due to mutations in genomic DNA. But could it be also caused also by faulty RNA molecules? A number of clues are pointing to this surprising hypothesis. Rolf Marschalek from the Institute of Pharmaceutical Biology at Goethe University ...

Navigating in the ocean of molecules

11-Aug-2009 - Tracking down new active agents for cancer or malaria treatment could soon become easier - thanks to a computer program with which researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund aim to facilitate the search for suitable pharmaceutical substances. The program, which ...