Bone is the second most commonly transplanted tissue after blood, with about two million bone transplants performed worldwide each year – but often with only moderate therapeutic success. Cell-based therapies could provide an alternative approach to transplantation. Together with colleagues from Paracelsus Medical Private University (PMU) Salzburg, researchers at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) have now demonstrated that human progenitor cells can regenerate large bone defects and form new mineralized tissue. The researchers have published the findings from their work in the journal Science Translational Medicine*.

Researchers from Freiburg and Kiel discover that actin acts in the cell nucleus and is partly responsible for the expression of male sexual characteristics

On 16 March 2023, the Scientific Director of the Leibniz Institute DSMZ-German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures, Jörg Overmann, was elected speaker of Section C – Life Sciences – of the Leibniz Association. The renowned microbiologist is thus also a member of the Leibniz Association’s Presidential Board.

The human immunodeficiency virus HIV-1 is able to infect various tissues in humans. Once inside the cells, the virus integrates its genome into the cellular genome and establishes persistent infections. The role of the structure and organisation of the host genome in HIV-1 infection is not well understood. Using a cell culture model based on brain immune microglia cells, an international research team led by scientists from Heidelberg University Hospital and the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) now defined the insertion patterns of HIV-1 in the genome of microglia cells.

The pathogenic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus escapes elimination from surface cells of the human lung by binding to a human protein. In doing so, it is able to nest in so called phagosomes, confined areas in the lung cells, and thus prevents cell processes that would kill the fungus from being set in motion. Researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology (Leibniz-HKI) have thus discovered a possible new target against the fungal infection.

Haematopoietic stem cell transplantation for the treatment of severe blood cancers is the only medical intervention that has cured two people living with HIV in the past. An international group of physicians and researchers from Germany, the Netherlands, France, Spain, and the United States has now identified another case in which HIV infection has been shown to be cured in the same way. In a study published this week in Nature Medicine, in which DZIF scientists from Hamburg and Cologne played a leading role, the successful healing process of this third patient was for the first time characterised in great detail virologically and immunologically over a time span of ten years.

Autophagy, or “self-eating”, is an essential cellular quality control mechanism that clears the cell of protein aggregates and damaged organelles. This mechanism is inactive under normal conditions and only triggered upon persistent cellular stress. Researchers from the Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology (GMI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Max Perutz Labs uncover a molecular switch that regulates autophagy in plants. Combining evolutionary analysis with a mechanistic experimental approach, they demonstrate that this regulatory mechanism is conserved in eukaryotes. The findings were published on February 10th in the EMBO Journal.

Ribosomes are the nanomachines of the cell whose task is the correct synthesis of proteins. Researchers at the Heidelberg University Biochemistry Center are studying the emergence of these “protein factories”, also known as ribosomes. Led by Prof. Dr Ed Hurt, they have decoded the special role of a heretofore unexplored biogenesis factor in the maturation of precursor ribosomes.

Bonn, January 25, 2023 – Mitochondria, the so-called powerhouse of the cells, are responsible for the energy supply of the organism and fulfill functions in metabolic and signaling processes. Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Freiburg have gained systematic insight into the organization of proteins in mitochondria. The protein map of mitochondria represents an important basis for further functional characterization of the powerhouse of cell and thus provide implications for diseases. The study has now been published in the renowned scientific journal „Nature“.

Novel drugs, such as vaccines against covid-19, among others, are based on drug transport using nanoparticles. Whether this drug transport is negatively influenced by an accumulation of blood proteins on the nanoparticle’s surface was not clarified for a long time. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research have now followed the path of such a particle into a cell using a combination of several microscopy methods. They were able to observe a cell-internal process that effectively separates blood components and nanoparticles.

Coenzyme Q distribution within the cell is regulated by mitochondria

Antioxidants are often advertised as a cure-all in nutrition and offered as dietary supplements. However, our body also produces such radical scavengers itself, one of which is coenzyme Q. Now researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing have discovered how the substance, which is produced in our mitochondria, reaches the cell surface and protects our cells from dying.

Technology developed at HIRI records ribonucleic acids in individual living cells.

When cells exchange metabolic products with other cells, they live longer. This new finding comes from a research team at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, which made the discovery in a study using yeast cells. The fact that these exchanges directly impact cell lifespans could play a significant role in future research into human aging processes and age-related diseases. The study appears in the latest issue of Cell*.

• Study by a team of researchers from Freiburg and Kyoto investigates formation of beta-barrel membrane proteins that make up the pores
• Similarities to wine barrel structure – protein subunits Sam50 and Sam37 play central roles
• Substances are exchanged between mitochondria and the cell water through the barrel pores

How can you trace a single diseased cell in an intact brain or a human heart? The search resembles looking for a needle in a haystack. The teams of Ali Ertürk at Helmholtz Munich and LMU Munich and Matthias Mann at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich have now developed a new technology named DISCO-MS that solves the problem. DISCO-MS uses robotics technology to obtain proteomics data from ‘sick’ cells precisely identified early in the disease.

Body cells burn off fat reserves when nutrient supply from food ceases. A team led by Professor Volker Haucke and Dr. Wonyul Jang from the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP) has now discovered a previously unknown mechanism for how this “starvation response” is triggered, and what can inhibit it. The results have been published in the renowned international journal Science.

Prior to allogeneic stem cell transplantation for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), complete remission is currently still considered the gold standard of care. A Germany-wide clinical trial now shows for the first time that this approach does not benefit disease-free survival or overall survival. An alternative approach of sequential conditioning followed by immediate stem cell transplantation may reduce side effects and shorten hospital stays.

In its race to advance assisted reproduction and stem cell associated technologies to save the northern white rhinoceros from extinction, the BioRescue consortium announces a major breakthrough: the creation of primordial germ cell-like cells (PGCLSs) from induced pluripotent stem cells of the northern white rhino Nabire. This milestone was led by specialists from Osaka University, Japan, and has never been achieved in large mammals before. Now there is one last step to master for the production of artificial rhino gametes (eggs and sperm) from preserved tissue.

Biology: Publication in Current Biology

Modern eukaryotic cells contain numerous so-called organelles, which once used to be independent bacteria. In order to understand how these bacteria were integrated into the cells in the course of evolution and how they are controlled, a research team from the Institute of Microbial Cell Biology at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) has examined the single-celled flagellate Angomonas deanei, which contains a bacterium that was taken up relatively recently. In the journal Current Biology, the biologists now describe how certain proteins in the flagellate control the cell division process of the bacterium, among other things.

Researchers have identified a new function of a well-known enzyme: the signal peptidase complex is responsible for the quality control of membrane proteins. The discovery of this new function for a key enzyme in cell biology has been published in ‘Science’ and could lead to new therapeutic approaches for Alzheimer’s and other protein-misfolding diseases.

Fertilization of an egg by sperm is the beginning of new life. The maternal and paternal genetic information, that collectively store the body plan of the living being, are combined after fertilization. However, the DNA is still in an inactive state in the cell nucleus at this early stage of life. While the first division of the fertilized egg cell functions with the help of maternal factors stored in the egg, for further development of an embryo the synthesis of new embryonic products is necessary, which requires access to the DNA of the embryo. As shown in Science, Kikuë Tachibana and her team at the MPI of Biochemistry have now shown that pioneer factor Nr5a2 awakens the embryonic DNA.

Increased cell proliferation is a key feature of diseases such as cancer. A research team from the University of Würzburg and two Leibniz Institutes has now succeeded in indirectly influencing this process.

Researchers from Dresden, together with Danish and Finnish colleagues, identify a gene that enables beta cells to communicate with each other, helping the pancreas to respond to glucose by insulin secretion.

How do single cells communicate in a tissue? How can these interactions be modeled, while retaining information of spatial context? Researchers around Fabian Theis from Helmholtz Munich Computational Health Center and Technical University of Munich (TUM) have generated a new method to represent cell communication: the node-centric expression models (NCEM). These models are based on graph neural networks and helps to uncover the effects of cell tissue niche composition on gene expression without loss of spatial information.

Scientists have identified the loss of the protein HIRA (histone cell cycle regulator) as a possible driving factor in a highly metastatic form of kidney cancer / study in ‘Science Advances’ opens up new perspectives for targeted therapies