Head


Matthias Görlach
Matthias Görlach

Staff Scientists

Oliver Ohlenschläger

Ramadurai Ramachandran

Postdocs

Michela Carella

PhD Students

Peter Bellstedt

Christian Herbst

Yvonne Ihle

Jessica Meinhardt

André Mischo

Thomas Seiboth

Diploma Students

Annika Niedner

Technicians/Engineers

Marina Baum

Sabine Häfner

Angelika Heller

Christiane Hirsch (secretary)

Jörg Leppert (NMR hardware)



 

Görlach Laboratory

Biomolecular NMR spectroscopy

Structural basis of biomolecular interactions in aging and disease

Onkoproteins E7

Metabolic and regulatory processes critically depend upon specific biomolecular recognition mechanisms. Disturbance of specific recognition may lead to loss of recognition fidelity or derailment of biological processes and thus to the development of acute or chronic disease. Proper recognition depends on "fitting" contact surfaces of the interacting biomolecules. We are employing heteronuclear NMR spectroscopy in the liquid and the solid state to investigate the structure of biomolecules and their interactions, in order to shed light on their structure-function relationship. This should contribute to understanding the molecular mechanisms relevant to ageing and to the pathogenesis of age-related diseases.

 

» Structure of the oncoprotein E7  from the human high-risk papillomavirus 45 [PDB I JenaLib]

 

 

 

Projects

The systems we are working on include proteins involved in the repair of oxidative damage of proteins and DNA, oncoproteins and RNA signal structures of viruses, which may cause cancer, and aggregates of proteins or of a triplet repeat expansion involved in the pathogenesis of degenerative diseases. In this context, we are also engaged in developing techniques for solid state NMR, which is a powerful tool for the structural characterisation of biomolecules not amenable to investigation by solution state NMR or X-ray crystallography.

 

Recent selected publications

  • Schwalbe M, Ohlenschläger O, Marchanka A, Ramachandran R, Häfner S, Heise T, Görlach M (2008) Solution structure of stem-loop alpha of the hepatitis B virus post-transcriptional regulatory element. Nucleic Acids Res. 36, 1681-1689. [PubMed; PDB code: 2JYM]
  • Riedel K, Herbst C, Häfner S, Leppert J, Ohlenschläger O, Swanson MS, Görlach M, Ramachandran R (2006) Constraints on the structure of (CUG)97-RNA from magic-angle-spinning solid-state NMR spectroscopy. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 45, 5620-5623. [PubMed]
  • Ohlenschläger O, Seiboth T, Zengerling H, Briese L, Marchanka A, Ramachandran R, Baum M, Korbas M, Meyer-Klaucke W, Dürst M, Görlach M (2006) Solution structure of the partially folded high-risk human papilloma virus 45 oncoprotein E7. Oncogene. 25, 5953-5959. [PubMed; PDB code: 2F8B]
  • Ihle Y, Ohlenschläger O, Häfner S, Duchardt E, Zacharias M, Seitz S, Zell R, Ramachandran R, Görlach M (2005) A novel cGUUAg tetraloop structure with a conserved yYNMGg-type backbone conformation from cloverleaf 1 of bovine enterovirus 1 RNA. Nucleic Acids Res. 33, 2003-2011. [PubMed; PDB code: 1Z30]
  • Ohlenschläger O, Wöhnert J, Bucci E, Seitz S, Häfner S, Ramachandran R, Zell R, Görlach M (2004) The structure of the stemloop D subdomain of coxsackievirus B3 cloverleaf RNA and its interaction with the proteinase 3C. Structure. 12, 237-248. [PubMed; PDB code: 1RFR]
  • Leppert J, Urbinati CR, Häfner S, Ohlenschläger O, Swanson MS, Görlach M, Ramachandran R (2004) Identification of NH...N hydrogen bonds by magic angle spinning solid state NMR in a double-stranded RNA associated with myotonic dystrophy. Nucleic Acids Res. 32, 1177-1183. [PubMed]

 

Current job offers

The group has one open position for a PhD student who will work within the framework of the Leibniz Graduate School of Aging and Age-Related Diseases (LGSA). Further information can be found here.

 

Last update: May 8, 2008
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