Publications related to Protein Engineering Tools to Explore the Function of Protein Post-Translational Modifications for Chromatin and Microtubule Cytoskeletal Biology

Deciphering the nature of cell state transitions in single cells using quantitative modeling of temporal dynamics

Cells are the smallest operational units of living systems. Through synthesis of various biomolecules and exchange of signals with the environment, cells tightly regulate their composition to realize a specific functional state. The transformation of a cel ...

EPFL2024

Revealing chromatin-specific functions of histone deacylases

Beat Fierz, Carlos Moreno Yruela

Histone deacylases are erasers of Nε-acyl-lysine post-translational modifications and have been targeted for decades for the treatment of cancer, neurodegeneration and other disorders. Due to their relatively promiscuous activity on peptide substrates in v ...

2024

Resolving bacterial cell biology: from replisome dynamics to cell wall synthesis

Chen Zhang

Bacteria are ubiquitous single cellular organisms. Compared to eukaryotic cells, bacteria have two unique characteristics: the membrane-less nucleoid and the cell wall built of peptidoglycan (PG). In most bacteria, a single circular chromosome is compacted ...

EPFL2024

Inheritance of H3K9 methylation regulates genome architecture in Drosophila early embryos

Fides Zenk

Constitutive heterochromatin is essential for transcriptional silencing and genome integrity. The establishment of constitutive heterochromatin in early embryos and its role in early fruitfly development are unknown. Lysine 9 trimethylation of histone H3 ( ...

Springernature2024

Decoding Chromatin Ubiquitylation: A Chemical Biology Perspective

Beat Fierz, Pauline Franz

Since Strahl and Allis proposed the "language of covalent histone modifications", a host of experimental studies have shed light on the different facets of chromatin regulation by epigenetic mechanisms. Initially proposed as a concept for controlling gene ...

Academic Press Ltd- Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Accessible and highly observable gastrointestinal organoid model systems for studying host-pathogen interactions

Moritz Hofer

Traditional cell cultures have long been fundamental to biological research, offering an alternative to animal models burdened by ethical constraints and procedural intricacies, often lacking relevance to human physiology and disease. Moreover, their inabi ...

EPFL2024

A chemical biology approach to decipher chromatin ubiquitylation by RNF168

Pauline Franz

DNA damage signaling following DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) involves numerous regulating proteins, which dynamically recognize ('read') and alter ('write' or 'erase') histone post-translational modifications (PTMs). Among these PTMs, the ubiquitin syste ...

EPFL2024

Bioengineering functional organoid models across scales

Tania Hübscher

The last two decades have seen the development of organoid models for many different tissues and organs. Organoids are three-dimensional organ-mimetics derived from stem or progenitor cells comprising various specialized cell types, resembling the architec ...

EPFL2024

Clinically compliant cryopreservation of differentiated retinal pigment epithelial cells

Gioele La Manno, Alex Russell Lederer, Cheng Zhao

Background aims: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common cause of blindness in elderly patients within developed countries, affecting more than 190 million worldwide. In AMD, the retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cell layer progressively d ...

Elsevier Sci Ltd2024

Investigating the intra-molecular and inter-molecular effects of post-translational modifications on intrinsically disordered protein regions and structured protein regions

Zhidian Zhang

Post-translational modifications (PTMs) play a pivotal role in regulating protein structure, interaction, and function. Aberrant PTM patterns are associated with diseases. Moreover, individual PTMs have a complex interaction with each other, known as PTM c ...

EPFL2024