Friedrich-Alexander Universitaet Erlangen-Nuernberg

Dr. Christof Kluck
Fahrstrasse 17
91054 Erlangen
Germany

Dr. Christof Kluck is the director of the Erlangen degree program in Molecular Medicin.

Previous experience relevant to the tasks

Cys-loop receptors serve as paradigms for structure-function relationships in biological signal transduction. Focusing on glycine receptors, the group of the P.I. has shown that changes in expression of functionally diverse variants encoded by distinct genes underly receptor plasticity in the developing and pathological CNS. Studies on hypertonic motor disorders have identified pathological glycine receptor variants that are characterized by perturbations in fundamental steps of ion channel function. These studies have contributed to a better understanding of the topological organization and molecular pathology of Cys-loop receptors.

Main tasks in NeuroCypres

Extracellular and intracellular domains of glycine receptor subunit variants will be expressed in prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems, followed by structural and physiological analysis, including biochemical characterization (Sieghart – partner 6, Tsetlin – partner 8), fluorescent tags (Bregestovski – partner 9, Lummis -partner 5, Smart – partner 11), cross-linking of photo-activated ligands and interaction sites (Tsetlin – partner 8). Preparation of constructs for NMR and protein crystallization (Smit – partner 1, Sixma – partner 2, Welte – partner16) will be complemented by structural and physiological characterizaton of disease-related receptor variants (Bertrand – partner 12, Bregestovski – partner 9, Sieghart – partner 6), characterization of glycine receptor autoimmunity (Tzartos – partner 14).