Kühnel, Karin Dr.*

Project Leader at the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry

• 2001 PhD, University of Cambridge, supervisor: Dr. Ben Luisi
• 2001-03 Postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Alfred Wittinghofer, MPI for Molecular Physiology, Dortmund
• 2003-07 Postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Ilme Schlichting, MPI for Medical Research, Heidelberg
• since 2007 Group Leader within the Department of Neurobiology, MPIbpc Göttingen

Major Research Interests

Autophagy is a conserved eukaryotic process that is a response to starvation but also fulfills additional functions, for example the degradation of invading pathogens. Focus of our work is the X-ray crystallographic structure determination of autophagy proteins and the further characterization of their interactions with binding partners.


Homepage Department/Research Group

http://www.mpibpc.mpg.de/groups/jahn/Kuehnel/index_kuehnel.htm


Selected Recent Publications

• Behrens C, Binotti B, Schmidt C, Robinson CV, Chua JJ, Kühnel K. (2013) Crystal Structure of the Human Short Coiled Coil Protein and Insights into SCOC-FEZ1 Complex Formation. PLoS One. 2013 Oct 1;8(10):e76355. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0076355.
• Honigmann A, van den Bogaart G, Iraheta E, Risselada HJ, Milovanovic D, Mueller V, Müllar S, Diederichsen U, Fasshauer D, Grubmüller H, Hell SW, Eggeling C, Kühnel K, Jahn R. (2013) Phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate clusters act as molecular beacons for vesicle recruitment. Nat Struct Mol Biol. 2013 Jun;20(6):679-86. doi: 10.1038/nsmb.2570. Epub 2013 May 12.
• Busse RA, Scacioc A, Hernandez JM, Krick R, Stephan M, Janshoff A, Thumm M, Kühnel K. (2013) Qualitative and quantitative characterization of protein-phosphoinositide interactions with liposome-based methods. Autophagy. 2013 May;9(5):770-7. doi: 10.4161/auto.23978. Epub 2013 Feb 27.
• Krick R, Busse RA, Scacioc A, Stephan M, Janshoff A, Thumm M, Kühnel K. (2012) Structural and functional characterization of the two phosphoinositide binding sites of PROPPINs, a β-propeller protein family. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2012 Jul 24;109(30):E2042-9. Epub 2012 Jul 2.
• Kühnel K, Diezmann D (2011) Crystal Structure of the Autochaperone Region from the Shigella flexneri Autotransporter IcsA. J Bacteriol.193(8):2042-5.
• Kühnel K, Ke N, Cryle MJ, Sligar SG, Schuler MA, Schlichting I (2008) Crystal Structures of Substrate-Free and Retinoic Acid-Bound Cyanobacterial Cytochrome. P450 CYP120A1. Biochemistry 47, 6552-6559.
• Kühnel K, Derat E, Terner J, Shaik S, Schlichting I (2007) Structure and quantum chemical characterization of chloroperoxidase compound 0, a common reaction intermediate of diverse heme enzymes. Proc.Natl.Acad.Sci.U.S.A 104, 99-104.