News from the Institute

The International Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) Organization announced this year's winners of the competition for one of the prestigious HFSP research grants. Amongst the awardees is the Dikic group, who together with the Sidhu group (Canada), the Komatsu group (Japan) and the Sander group (U.S.) will receive 1,35 M USD for the next 3 years. "This award considerably pushes autophagy research in Frankfurt, especially because it funds one of our most innovative projects. Within the next 3 years, we expect to gain a lot of knowledge about molecular targeting of the autophagy network", says Ivan Dikic, IBCII director.

The groups of Ivan Dikic and Masato Akutsu have moved closer in understanding how a novel form of protein modification, the linear ubiquitination, controls central pathways of immunity and inflammation. In a collaborative effort, they showed that the two enzymes responsible for assembling and disassembling linear ubiquitin chains are contained in one complex. By structural analysis, they managed to decipher the molecular details of the interaction between these two key enzymes and were able to show how the opposing activities of the complex are controlled. Their results are published in the current edition of Molecular Cell online.

Complex I is the largest enzyme of the respiratory chain, a fundamental metabolic pathway operating to supply the cell with energy. Dysfunction of complex I causes numerous neuromuscular and neurodegenerative diseases in humans. Combining biochemical and structural evidence the Zickermann group now succeeded in shedding light on the essential role of accessory subunit NB4M (NDUFA6/LYRM6) for complex I function. The results are published in the current early edition of the journal PNAS (Angerer et al., doi: 10.1073/pnas.1322438111).

In a joint effort, IBC 2 and the Buchmann Institute (BMLS) recruited two new group leaders: Dr Anja Bremm (left) who received a prestigious Emmy Noether Fellowship from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and Dr Masato Akutsu (right) who will be heading a group endowed by the Leibniz Prize awarded to Ivan Dikic by the DFG. Both groups will be located in the BMLS on Riedberg campus, Anja Bremm mainly concentrating on cellular signaling, and Masato Akutsu strengthening the structural biology platform.

In collaboration with Katrin Rittinger at the MRC-NIMR in London, the Dikic group solved another molecular puzzle about the formation of specific Ubiquitin chains. In the current issue of Nature, they report the crystal structure of the catalytic core of HOIP, the critical enzymes involved in forming linear (Met1-linked) Ubiquitin chains. These chains are important regulators of cellular signalling, and knowing the molecular structure of the complexes involved is an important step forward to understanding how these pathways control innate immunity and inflammation.