Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics

Max Planck research reveals clever dosage control mechanism of biallelic genes

The enzyme MOF regulates genes in the nucleus, but also modifies metabolic proteins in the mitochondria

The NSL complex is a key player in controlling intraciliary transport genes

The new team of Vice-Presidents includes three women. This means women now hold the majority on the Executive Committee

How the immune system learned to distinguish self from non-self

Max Planck scientist Tim Lämmermann is investigating how immune cells hunt pathogens in swarms. The cells exhibit a behavior that biologists will also be familiar with from an insect – the Asian honey bee.

Men and women possess different sex chromosomes. Nature, however, manages to reconcile this genetic gender gap. Asifa Akhtar, the Director of the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, and her team are researching the sophisticated epigenetic mechanisms responsible for this process. As the Vice-President of the Biological and Medical Section in the Max Planck Society, she is also committed to reducing the gender gap in science.

In the mid-1970s, Georges Köhler, later Director at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology in Freiburg, succeeded in fusing together a short-lived immune cell and a rapidly dividing cancer cell. The result was an immortal cell chimera with the ability to produce identical (“monoclonal”) antibodies, ushering in a revolution in biology and medical science. In 1984, Köhler was awarded the Nobel Prize along with César Milstein and Niels Kaj Jerne. The researcher, who died young, would have celebrated his 70th birthday this year.

Knowledge changes constantly as research probes the validity of existing knowledge and converts ignorance into new knowledge. Research may also create new ignorance by discovering entirely novel territories whose very existence we had not imagined. Our author analyzes the conditions most conducive to drawing back the curtains.

Research into epigenetics is a rapidly growing field. A recent conference at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology in Freiburg shed light on the reasons.

Macrophages are professional phagocytes  equipped to efficiently capture and eliminate pathogens inside their internal digestive system, the phagolysosome. However, certain bacteria can resist the elimination inside macrophages and thus are able to escape the control of the immune system. Our research now identifies a specialized communication mode between two different organelles, the phagolysosome and the mitochondria, activating an effective and cell-intrinsic anti-bacterial defense mechanism to control bacterial growth.

Neutrophilic granulocytes are scavenger cells of the innate immune response and first aiders of our immune system. They patrol through blood vessels and enter quickly into tissues upon signs of inflammation or infection to eliminate pathogens. Once they have arrived, they form impressive cell swarms and together attack the microbes. Our research shows that neutrophils have evolved a molecular start-stop system to self-control their swarm activity and thereby effectively clear bacteria in tissues.

Neurons, also known as nerve cells, send and receive signals in our brain. They are particularly complex and fulfill functions that are unique to this cell type. Our research has shown that particular RNA sequences are of crucial importance for neurons to maintain their identity, and to develop and function properly. We study the gene-regulatory mechanisms that underlie the neuron-specific RNA landscape that drives neural function in health and disease.

The genetic information for building an organism is transmitted from parents to offspring through gametes. Although it has long been thought that the DNA blueprint solely is encoded in our genes, increasing evidence shows that stress-induced changes in the chromatin can also be inherited through gametes affecting gene regulation across generations. Our recent research shows that an epigenetic modification, H3K27me3, is maternally inherited and controls gene expression during early embryogenesis. Future work will address the mechanisms underlying intergenerational epigenetic inheritance.

Every organ in our body is composed of a multitude of single cells. Key to understanding the function of an organ is the knowledge of all the distinct cell types with their respective function plus their developmental pathways, with a so-called stem cell as a common starting point. Innovative novel molecular biology methods now permit the simultaneous quantification of thousands of molecules across single cells. This reveals a fingerprint of a cell, permitting to discriminate cell types of different function and to infer developmental pathways.