News from the Institute

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.

In its recent issue, Laborjournal (LJ) publishes a citation analysis in the field of cell biology covering the period from 2007 to 2010. Instead of asking the mirror, LJ searched the database "Web of Science" for authors based in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Amongst the Top 5: IBC2 director Ivan Dikic with 1886 citations of 35 articles. One article from the Dikic lab made it under the Top 10 of most cited articles: the report about a role for the protein NBR1 in autophagy , published by Kirkin and collaborators 2009 in the journal Molecular Cell.

It took years to develop, and the input of scientists from five countries: BLESS, a novel technology for mapping DNA breaks by next generation sequencing. The resulting publication in Nature Methods by Crosetto, Dikic, Rowicka, and many colleagues is now featured by Laborjournal.