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Neurobiology
The research of the Department of Neurobiology focuses on the study of the development and degeneration of nerve cells on the molecular, cellular and systemic level. A large part of the working group is concerned with the mechanisms that underlie the course of Alzheimer's disease. A protein of the neuronal cytoskeleton, the tau protein, plays a key role in this, and we investigate its (mal) functions using "live cell imaging" methods in cell and tissue models.
Research topics
- Molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease
- The cytoskeleton in the development and aging of nerve cells
- Molecular mechanisms of cell stress
Model systems
- Neural cell cultures
- Organotypic brain slices
- Transgenic mouse models
Methods
- Cell and tissue cultures
- Viral and non-viral gene transfer
- "Live cell imaging" and algorithm-based image analysis
- Extracellular recordings with a multi-electrode array
Selected Publications
Hrynchak MV, Rierola M, Golovyashkina N, Penazzi L, Pump WC, David B, Sündermann F, Brandt R, Bakota L (2020) Chronic presence of oligomeric Aβ differentially modulates spine parameters in the hippocampus and cortex of mice with low APP transgene expression. Front Synaptic Neurosci, 12:16, doi: 10.3389/fnsyn.2020.00016. pdf
Niewidok B*, Igaev M*, Pereira da Graca A, Strassner A, Lenzen C, Richter CP, Piehler J, Kurre R, Brandt R (2018) Single-molecule imaging reveals dynamic biphasic partition of RNA-binding proteins in stress granules. (*joint first authors) J Cell Biol, 217, 1303–1318, doi: 10.1083/jcb.201709007. pdf
Gauthier-Kemper A*, Suárez Alonso M*, Sündermann F, Niewidok B, Fernandez MP, Bakota L, Heinisch JJ, Brandt R (2018) Annexins A2 and A6 interact with the extreme N-terminus of tau and thereby contribute to tau’s axonal localization (*joint first authors). J Biol Chem, 293, 8065-8076, doi: 10.1074/jbc.RA117.000490. pdf
