Projects under the direction of Dr. Rainer Niedenthal

Cellular signal transduction is characterized by factors that, in order to perform their function, must repeatedly undergo a change in their activation state. Certain mutually influencing protein modifications and the changes in protein conformation induced by them play an important role in this. Protein modification with phosphate groups, which is closely linked to other modifications such as conjugation with ubiquitin-like proteins, is of particular importance here. The work of my research group focuses on protein phosphorylation and SUMOylation, a protein conjugation similar to ubiquitination, and their functions in different signal transduction processes. In this context, investigations are carried out in different knock-out cell culture models to find out how the mentioned protein modifications affect the functional conformation of signal transduction components ensured by peptidy-prolyl isomerases. For the necessary investigations, new methods are also being developed to effectively characterize the functional significance of the modification-dependent conformational changes.