Martin Grininger - Biological Chemistry
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---OPEN POSITIONS---
Students and researchers, who are interested in challenging and interdisciplinary projects in biological chemistry and structural biology are encouraged to apply! We are regularly looking for highly motivated undergraduate students (Bachelor/Master), graduate students (Doktoranden) and postdocs to join the group. The lab and the scientific environment (currently MPI, Munich, but starting at the CEF, Frankfurt in 2012) offer a stimulating and inspiring environment in an ambitious, young team.
If you are interested in joining our group or you want further information, please email to grininge@biochem.mpg.de
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The aim of our research is to structurally and functionally describe proteins, and to exploit the working mode of proteins in biochemical, biomedical and biotechnological applications.
This concept has already been demonstrated for the flavoprotein dodecin. After its functional and structural characterization, dodecin is currently used as model compound in spectroscopy and bioorganic chemistry, as well as in biotechnological applications. The current research focus is on the fatty acid synthesis in eukaryotes which is performed in large multienzyme proteins, harboring several catalytic properties within one single polypeptide chain. Due to the various catalytic functions combined in these fatty acid synthase complexes, such proteins are also interesting in biotechnological applications. The technical progress in structure determination methods (especially X-ray crystallography) allows for the first time insights into the architecture of such proteins at atomic level. We intend to apply the concept, which we successfully have been using for dodecin, on the fatty acid synthase systems.
Research Focus - Multienzyme proteins in fatty acid synthesis
Besides proteins and DNA, lipids are the third main building block of living organisms. Fatty acids are carboxylic acids with a long hydrophobic tail. In esterified form, fatty acids are an important substructure of lipids as triacylglycerol, glycerophospolipid and spingolipid. Fatty acids are generally synthesized by the fatty acid synthase systems. The fatty acid synthases are differently organized in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. While in most prokaryotes, enzymes of this biosynthetic pathway exist as separate proteins, they assemble to multienzyme proteins in eukaryotes. With a multi-oligomeric complex, fungi seem to harbour the most complex organisation of a fatty acid synthase.
We have determined the 2.6 MDa dodecameric complex of S. cerevisiae to a resolution of 4 Å. The structure builds the base for further studies. We are especially interested in the modulation of the fatty acid working mode to synthesize fatty acids of different chain length and different chemistry.
Research Focus - Flavoproteins as molecular switches
The versatile use of the flavin cofactors in nature is based on their broad chemical competence and on the ability of proteins to modulate flavin properties. In nature flavins are widely used to transform physical input into biological output signals. The transformation of signals involves the protein binding the flavin. First, the physical input is translated into a conformation change of this flavin binding protein, and, second, the conformational change is converted into the biological output.
We investigate flavoproteins to elucidate the mechanistic background of signal mediation. In addition, we want to decouple this two-step process in a way that the conformational change of the protein is turned in an output signal of interest.
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