von Blume

The trans-Golgi network (TGN) is the central hub for the transport of proteins within and out of cells. As protein transport is essential for cell biology, the cell closely regulates which proteins are packaged and transported in vesicles. However, the process by which non-signal-carrying proteins are packaged is still poorly understood. A new study carried out by the Research Group led by Julia von Blume at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried in collaboration with Christopher Burd’s Research Group at Yale University has now shown that the sorting of proteins into vesicles and lipid synthesis at the TGN are molecularly coupled. The study was published in Developmental Cell. more

Julia von Blume has been named as the recipient of the Heisenberg grant of the German Research Foundation (DFG), for the duration of five years. She has also been given funding of € 900,000 as part of the Plus 3 Perspective Programme of the Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation. These highly coveted programmes provide outstanding researchers with support on their career path to becoming professors. more

Proteins complete certain tasks both within and outside cells, like small machines. For example, the COMP and LysC proteins are active in intercellular spaces. But how do these proteins reach their action site following their synthesis in the cell interior? Julia von Blume, who is head of the “Molecular Basis of Protein Trafficking” research group at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, has now succeeded in demonstrating that calcium and the transport protein Cab45 play a central role in the functioning of a special department of the Golgi apparatus, the cell’s distribution centre. The inflow of the calcium signal into the Golgi apparatus causes the Cab45 protein to change shape, accumulate and only come into contact with proteins that carry out their work outside the cell. Hence Cab45 is a central component of the previously unknown sorting mechanism in the cellular export department. more

Cells in an organism communicate with each other via messenger substances. These are often proteins such as hormones, which after their production inside the cell are transported out of the cell and secreted to the cellular environment. How exactly this export process takes place in detail has until now remained unclear. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (MPIB) in Munich-Martinsried have now shown in detail how the ‘mailroom of the cell’ sorts a subset of the proteins that are transported out of the cell. “This mechanism regulates the correct sorting of the proteins and is thus essential for the human organism,” said Julia von Blume, research group leader at the MPIB. The results have now been published in the Journal of Cell Biology. more