Universitaet Konstanz

Prof. Dr. Wolfram Welte
Universitaetsstrasse 10
Konstanz 78464
Germany

The “reform” University of Konstanz was founded in 1966 with the intention to allow for a barrierfree contact between students and their supervisors and to create a campus structure avoiding traditional borders between institutes and departments. Biology was a research focus from the beginning, supported by the other science departments of Physics and Chemistry. Since fall 2007, the University of Konstanz has been one of the nine successful universities identified by the German Excellence Initiative.

When our group started to do X-ray crystallography of proteins in Konstanz in 1995, we had already a record of several years of research work on membrane protein structure analysis. In Konstanz we continued this direction and on requests from our local colleagues, widened it to include selected water soluble proteins.

Typically we start structural projects by establishing collaboration with a group interested in the target protein and complementing our crystallographic expertise with a strong record in protein over expression and functional analysis.

Among our structural highlights are several bacterial outer membrane proteins, the c-ring of the F1-Fo-ATPase, and the AcrB multidrug exporter. These achievements were technically challenging and also led us to the development and improvement of crystallographic procedures.

We are also developing suitable detergents for the crystallization of labile membrane proteins. In the past, we have developed and characterized a mixed detergent-protein system for the nAchR from Torpedo marmorata. Together with our partner, Prof. Andreas Plückthun, University of Zürich, and the Neurocypres partners we shall exploit the potential of artificial high-affinity binding proteins (DARPINs) for the crystallization of Cys-loop receptors. Next partner >