Research interests
Yeast-Parkinson projects:
Sordaria projects:
How does a network of simple hyphae build a complex, multicellular structure? Fruiting-body development in filamentous ascomycetes is such a process: a program of cellular differentiation that requires specific environmental conditions and is controlled by a large number of developmentally regulated genes.
We study the genes and proteins that regulate this process in the homothallic (self-fertile) ascomycete Sordaria macrospora, which has been a model organism for fruiting-body development for about three decades. Because S. macrospora completes its sexual cycle without a mating partner, recessive mutations that affect fruiting-body development are directly visible. Mutants blocked at different stages of development, a sequenced genome, efficient gene deletion and tools for live-cell imaging and proteomics allow us to go from a mutant phenotype to the protein network behind it.
Our current main focuses:
How do selective autophagy and the turnover of organelles such as peroxisomes contribute to vegetative growth and fruiting-body development?
How does the reproductive system shape a genome? We compare the genomes of homothallic (self-fertile) and heterothallic (self-sterile) Sordaria species and test how UV light changes their genomes and the expression of genes that are active during sexual development.
How does this conserved phosphatase and kinase complex coordinate hyphal fusion and sexual development, and how is it connected to MAP kinase signaling?
Further research topics: