Center's research news

2013/05/16

Structural Basis for Rab1 De-AMPylation by the Legionella pneumophila Effector SidD

The covalent attachment of adenosine monophosphate (AMP) to proteins, a process called AMPylation (adenylylation), has recently emerged as a novel theme in microbial pathogenesis. While AMPylases from various pathogenic microorganisms have...

2013/04/22

Regulating the regulators: Steroid hormone synthesis is controlled by SUMO, Ftz-f1 and Scavenger Receptors.

Steroid hormones are cholesterol derivates that control many aspects of animal physiology, including development, growth, energy storage and reproduction. In insects, the main steroid hormone is ecdysone, which gets activated in pulses that precede...

2013/04/19

New insight into the regulation of prostate gland morphogenesis

Researchers from the Cell Biology and Stem Cells Unit at CIC bioGUNE, Imperial College London and DKFZ Heidelberg have uncovered a novel link between the tumor suppressor Dkk-3 and TGF-β signaling. The study, by Romero, Kawano et al., is...

2013/04/08

Shedding light on new metabolic pathways implicated in cancer

The group of Arkaitz Carracedo at CIC bioGUNE has corresponded a review article in the prestigious journal Nature Reviews Cancer where he revisits the metabolic pathways required to sustain cancer cell survival and growth. In this Progress article,...

2013/02/13

Novel antagonists in early and late stages of cancer development.

A multidisciplinary research team led by groups from CIC bioGUNE and the University of the Basque Country has developed a novel family of synthetic compounds with strong antiproliferative and antimetastatic activity in a murine model...

2013/02/12

Proteomics Platform at CIC bioGUNE participates in the Chromosome Centric Project (C-HPP) within Human Proteome Organisation (HUPO) through ProteoRed-ISCIII Network

With the generation of a well characterized human genome map together with the availability of in depth transcriptomics, the genesis of C-HPP came from the realization that the proteomic community was well placed to study the full...

2013/02/06

Solute carrier family 2 member 1 is involved in the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) covers a wide spectrum of liver pathologies including steatosis and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and may progress to cirrhosis and its complications such as hepatocarcinoma. NAFLD is...

2012/12/11

S-adenosylmethionine in Liver Health, Injury, and Cancer

In this article, published in Physiological Reviews, Shelly Lu, from the Keck School of Medicine at the USC in Los Angeles and José Mato, from bioGUNE, review the work they have carried out in collaboration during the last 15...

2012/12/05

A metabolic signature predicts the biological age in mice

It is the metabolism, not the genes or the proteins, what defines better the phenotype of an organism. Consequently, the study of the unique metabolic signature that specific cellular processes leave behind is the most promising approach to...

2012/11/16

Glucose-galactose binding protein: e pur si muove.

Protein function is often coupled to internal dynamics. Periplasmic binding proteins are bi-domain bacterial proteins that can recognize many different nutrients and oligoelements, required for the survival of the organism. They...

2012/09/19

LKB1 drives Ras activation in bad prognosis hepatocellular carcinoma: A new axis in liver tumorigenesis.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) accounts for more than 90% of liver cancers and it is becoming a major health problem. HCC incidence is growing with more than 750.000 annual cases worldwide. Liver cirrhosis at a high risk of HCC...

2012/08/20

Burning fat for cellular fitness: friend or foe? 

Fat accumulation and elimination in developed societies is an increasing health and aesthetic concern. But there is more to this process than just the impact of lipid accumulation on the organism. Lipids are one of the most...

2012/08/02

Structural and functional analyses of the interaction of archaeal RNA polymerase with DNA

Multi-subunit RNA polymerases (RNAPs) in all three domains of life share a common ancestry. The composition of the archaeal RNAP (aRNAP) is not identical between phyla and species, with subunits Rpo8 and Rpo13 found in restricted...

2012/07/13

HuR plays a critical role in liver fibrosis development

Hepatic fibrosis is the common consequence of chronic liver diseases such as viral and autoimmune hepatitis, alcohol consumption, biliary obstruction, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSC)...

2012/06/04

NK cells are the main contributors to the chronification of liver inflammation in the absence of GNMT

Glycine N-methyltransferase (GNMT) is the key enzyme that catabolizes S-adenosylmethionine (SAMe), the main methyl donor of the body that tightly controls cell growth, apoptosis and proliferation. GNMT is regulated during chronic...

2012/05/07

Post-transcriptional regulation of Schwann cell development

Schwann cells are the dominant glia cells in the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and associate with axons in peripheral nerve trunks. These cells control neuronal survival in the embryo, provide myelin that is essential for normal...

2012/04/16

NASH predictive test

In collaboration with OWL Genomics, CIBERehd, eleven hospitals and other Research Centers from Spain, France and the...

2012/03/13

Mad rabbit disease

The ability of prions to infect some species and not others is determined by the transmission barrier. This unexplained phenomenon led to the belief that certain species were not susceptible to transmissible spongiform...

2012/02/27

The structure of the dimerization domain of the tumor suppressor ING4 reveals the functional organization of the ING family of chromatin binding proteins.

A collaborative work between the groups of Ignacio Palmero (CSIC), Guillermo Montoya (CNIO) and Francisco J Blanco (CIC bioGUNE) shows that the dimerization domain of ING4 forms an antiparallel coiled-coil structure with important...

2012/01/31

New mechanism involved in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma and colon cancer.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a neoplasm with poor prognosis and represents the fifth most common cancer worldwide. The research team leaded by Dr. M. Luz Martínez-Chantar at the Metabolomics Unit of CICbioGUNE had...

2012/01/31

Integrative analysis of the ubiquitin proteome isolated using Tandem Ubiquitin Binding Entities (TUBEs)

According to a study carried out by researchers at CIC bioGUNE (Proteomics Unit and Proteomics Platform), the use of Tandem repeated Ubiquitin Binding Entities (TUBEs) under non-denaturing conditions followed by mass spectrometry...

2011/12/19

First Engineered Human GLTP

The rational engineering of proteins with desirable properties is an emerging field that relies on structural studies. A research team of CICbioGUNE leaded by Lucy Malinina reported first structure-guided engineering of the lipid...

2011/12/12

Methionine adenosyltransferase 1A gene deletion disrupts hepatic VLDL assembly in mice

Very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) secretion provides a mechanism to export triglycerides (TG) from the liver to peripheral tissues, maintaining lipid homeostasis. In non-alcoholic fatty-liver disease (NAFLD) VLDL secretion...

2011/10/10

De novo induction of amyloid-β deposition in vivo

Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common type of senile dementia, is associated to the buildup of misfolded amyloid-β (Aβ) in the brain. Although compelling evidences indicate that the misfolding and oligomerization of...

2011/08/16

Alternate Models of RNA Looping on Nova-1 Protein in Splicing

Nova proteins are implicated in alternate splicing regulation of specific neuronal genes and expressed exclusively in neurons. Recent issue of journal STRUCTURE (1) reported the results of structural study of Nova-1 that summarized...

2011/07/18

The Cryo-EM Structure of a Complete 30S Translation Initiation Complex from Escherichia coli

Researchers from CICbioGUNE in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry have described the first initiation complex for E. coli ribosomes during translation.

The selection of mRNA, of...

2011/07/07

The activity of SALL transcriptional repressors depends on their HDAC and their SUMOylation status

The SALL (Spalt-like) family of zinc finger transcription factors is conserved throughout evolution and is involved in fundamental biological processes, including stem cell maintenance and carcinogenesis. In humans, mutations in SALL...

2011/07/01

Rapid identification of fluorochrome modification sites in proteins

Conjugation of a fluorescent dye to the ε-amino groups of protein lysine residues maximizes the detection sensitivity in binding assays or cell imaging. However the evaluation of the homogeneity of the population of the modified...

2011/05/19

Macromolecular crowding fails to fold a globular halophilic protein in cells

Scientists from the Structural Biology Unit in collaboration with researchers of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have investigated the folding of a halophilic globular protein inside the cells by heteronuclear NMR...

2011/05/02

The metabolism of cancer: Warburg effect mediated by ROS and HIF

In Cancer cells, the reprogramming of cellular metabolism requires a glycolitic shift that provides the source of lipids, amino acids and nucleic acids needed for tumor progression and proliferation. Critical roles for...

2011/04/29

miRanalyzer: an update on the detection and analysis of microRNAs in high-throughput sequencing experiments

We present a new version of miRanalyzer, a web server and stand-alone tool for the detection of known and prediction of new microRNAs in highthroughput sequencing experiments. The new version has been notably improved regarding speed,...

2011/04/13

Intracellular Rescue of the Uroporphyrinogen III Synthase Activity in Enzymes Carrying the Hotspot Mutation

In a collaborative effort between the Metabolomics Unit and the Structural Biology Unit, CICbioGUNE researchers have unravelled the mechanism by which the most aggressive mutation found in uroporphyrinogen III synthase enzyme gene...

2011/03/17

The sirtuin SIRT3 counteracts HIF1A-mediated metabolic reprogramming in cancer

Researchers at Harvard Medical School in collaboration with a group from CIC bioGUNE reveal a tumor suppressive activity for the deacetylase SIRT3 in the regulation of cancer cell metabolism.
SIRT3 is a NAD-dependent sirtuin...

2011/02/11

Structural studies of a eukaryotic pore-forming toxin.

Collaboration between the University of the Basque Country and the Structural Biology Unit in CIC bioGUNE brought some new insights into functioning of a membrane protein. The joint teams report the crystallographic and the...

2011/02/10

Designed endonucleases in gene therapy for the Bubble Boy syndrome

A collaborative work from research groups at CIC bioGUNE, CNIO, CRG and Cellectis shows how meganucleases can be tailored to induce homologous recombination in human cells and repair the defective gene causing severe combined...

2011/01/20

Liver-specific deletion of prohibitin 1 results in spontaneous liver injury, fibrosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma in mice

Prohibitin 1 is a highly conserved, ubiquitously expressed protein that participates in diverse processes including mitochondrial chaperone interactions, growth and apoptosis. Researchers from the Division of Gastroenterology and...

2011/01/19

Different DNA binding modes for p53 tumor suppressor

Tumor suppressor p53 is a transcription factor that plays a central role in cell cycle control, and mutations in the protein are related to nearly 50 % of human tumours. Collaboration between groups of Alan Fersht (MRC) and Mikel...

2011/01/11

Two recent publications reveal how cancer-associated mutations in ING1 and ING4 genes impair their tumour suppressor activity

Collaborative work between the groups of Ignacio Palmero (Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas-CSIC) and Francisco J Blanco (CIC bioGUNE) has unveiled the molecular implications of mutations in two of the tumor suppressors...

2011/01/11

New insight into the regulation of neuronal differentiation by Wnt proteins

Researchers from the Cell Biology and Stem Cells Unit and the Genome Analysis Group at CIC bioGUNE have discovered novel functions for two members of the Wnt protein family during neural differentiation of stem cells.

2010/10/18

A novel strategy to isolate ubiquitin conjugates reveals a role of ubiquitination in neural development

Ubiquitination of neuronal proteins is an essential regulatory mechanism of brain function. Its failure is associated with a number of neurodegenerative conditions, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. However, isolation of neuronal...

2010/10/05

Estrogen affects the proportion of stem cells in the breast

Researchers from Maria Vivanco’s laboratory at Cell Biology and Stem Cells Unit of CIC bioGUNE, in collaboration with clinicians from several hospitals in the Basque country and Cantabria, have recently reported that estrogen reduces the size of the...

2010/10/01

Blood test developed for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease diagnosis

Researchers from the Metabolomics unit at CICbioGUNE-CIBERehd and OWL Genomics Ltd. (Bilbao, Spain) have used metabolomics technology to develop a blood test for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) diagnosis. This research has been recently...

2010/09/22

Critical role of LKB1-Akt pathway activation in the proliferation of hepatocellular carcinoma

Researchers from the Metabolomics unit at CICbioGUNE-CIBERehd have recently observed that the enzyme LKB1, which had been initially considered a tumor suppressor, performs the opposite function in hepatocarcinoma cells derived from liver tumors of...

2010/09/01

Structural Basis for the Wobbler Mouse Neurodegenerative Disorder

Structural basis for the wobbler mouse neurodegenerative disorder caused by mutation in the Vps54 subunit of the GARP complex: the GARP complex is involved in tethering endosome-derived vesicles to the trans-Golgi network. This study sheds light on...

2010/07/28

Fibroblast Growth Factor 21 in Obesity and Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) is a hepatic protein that plays a critical role in metabolism, stimulating fatty acid oxidation in liver and glucose uptake in fat. Its systemic administration to obese rodents and diabetic monkeys leads to...

2010/06/24

Novel Function and Intracellular Localization of Methionine Adenosyltransferase 2β Splicing Variants

Human methionine adenosyltransferase 2B (MAT2B) gene encodes two major splicing variants, V1 and V2, which are differentially expressed in normal tissues. Both variants are induced in human liver cancer and regulate growth. Researchers from the...

2010/06/23

Post-translational modification by sumoylation is crucial to the activity of the Spalt-like family of transcription factors

The Spalt-like (Sall) family of zinc finger transcription factors is conserved throughout evolution and is involved in fundamental biological processes, as well as in embryonic stem cell maintenance. Little is known about the post-translational...

2010/06/01

The structure of the cellular stress sensor Gadd45α has been determined by NMR

The Gadd45 nuclear proteins modulate the response of mammalian cells to genetoxic and physiological stress. Gadd45 regulate DNA repair, cell cycle, apoptosis, and modulate tumor formation by interacting with other proteins. Human Gadd45α is...

2010/05/07

High-density SNP genotyping detects homogeneity of Spanish and French Basques, and confirms their genomic distinctiveness from other European populations

Researchers from the Co-operative Research Center, CIC bioGUNE, from the Basque Foundation for Health Innovation and Research and from the Department of Genetics, Physical Anthropology and Animal Physiology of the University of the Basque Country,...

2010/05/06

The Crystal Structure of Protein MJ1225 from Methanocaldococcus jannaschii Shows Strong Conservation of Key Structural Features Seen in the Eukaryal gamma-AMPK

In mammals, 5′-AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is a heterotrimeric protein composed of a catalytic serine/threonine kinase subunit (alpha) and two regulatory subunits (beta and gamma). The gamma-subunit senses the intracellular energy...

2010/04/21

Sorting of the Alzhermer´s Disease Amyloid Precursor Protein Mediated by the AP-4 Complex.

A new Signal-Adaptor Interaction between Alzheimer's Disease Amyloid Precursor Protein and the AP-4 Complex has been published in the March edition of Developmental Cell, with Adriana L Rojas, manager of the macromolecular crystallography...

2010/04/16

Molecular cross talk between misfolded proteins in animal models of Alzheimer's and prion diseases.

The work whose results suggest an interaction between Alzheimer's and prion pathologies has been published in the March edition of The Journal of Neuroscience, with Joaquín Castilla, the head of CIC bioGUNE’s Prion Lab, as one of the...

2010/03/26

New insight into the role of Wnt-11 in prostate cancer

Researchers from the Cell Biology and Stem Cells Unit at CIC bioGUNE and Imperial College London have studied the function of Wnt-11 in prostate cancer. They report that Wnt-11 promotes prostate tumour cell survival, migration and differentiation...

2010/03/24

Advances in protein quantitation using iTRAQ labeling

Proteomics Platform group at CIC bioGUNE has recently published two papers focused on the methodological aspects of protein quantitation by liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry, using iTRAQ labeling.

The work by Casado-Vela et...

2010/03/05

Bypass of an aromatic amine lesion by Y-family polymerase Dpo4.

An international team of researchers from MSKCC (USA), NYU (USA) and CICbioGUNE reported a detailed insight into the mechanisms by which Dpo4, a member of the Y-family DNA polymerases, bypasses an aromatic amine lesion. To do this, researchers solved...

2010/03/03

Novel properties of LDL atherogenic particles uncovered by NMR

A team of researchers from CIC bioGUNE and the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, in Barcelona, have measured 2D-NMR spectra of the surface-exposed lysine residues of the apoB-100 protein in both LDL(-) and LDL(+) subfractions. The differences...

2010/02/11

Diagonal-Free 3D/4D HN,HN-TROSY-NOESY-TROSY.

Researchers at the CIC bioGUNE NMR facility have developed a novel NMR method for measuring crucial atomic distances for protein structure determination with unprecedented resolution, coverage and purity. The new diagonal-free 3D/4D...

2010/02/05

Structure of the Tumor Suppressor ING4

The tumor suppressor ING4 regulates gene transcription by recruiting chromatin remodeling complexes to active promoters. A team of CIC bioGUNE researchers has investigated the structure of ING4 and found that it forms dimers in vitro and in vivo....

2010/01/27

HOXB9 promotes breast cancer progression

Aberrant expression of transcription factors has been implicated in tumorigenesis. Investigators from the Cell Biology and Stem Cells Unit at CIC bioGUNE and groups at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School have shown that...

2010/01/20

New insight into the regulation of axon growth by GSK-3, a protein kinase implicated in neurodegenerative disease.

Researchers from the Cell Biology and Stem Cells Unit at CIC bioGUNE have uncovered a function for the neuron-specific variant of the protein kinase GSK-3. The study is the outcome of a project initially funded by the British Council Researcher...

2010/01/19

New insights into the regulation of liver de-differentiation, development and human HCC progression.

HuR/Methyl-HuR and AUF1 provide a post-transcriptional regulatory mechanism of MAT1A and MAT2A, the two isoforms of the MAT enzyme, responsible for the levels of hepatic S-adenosylmethionine.

Researchers from the Metabolomics Unit at...

2009/12/16

Proteins that ‘resist' salt.

Structural Basis for the Aminoacid Composition of Proteins from Halophilic Archea.

A group of researchers from CIC bioGUNE, led by Dr. Oscar Millet, has found the answer to one of the mysteries that has been rife in...

2009/12/11

Protein MJ0100: an open-to-closed conformational change in its CBS motif pair.

Binding of 5´-methylthioadenosine and S-adenosyl-L-methionine to protein MJ0100 triggers an open-to-closed conformational change in its CBS motif pair.

The group of Alfonso Martínez from the Structural Biology Unit of CIC...

2009/11/03

The role of surface tension in protein stability

The group of Oscar Millet from the Structural Biology Unit of CIC bioGUNE has recently published a study on the influence of the surface tension on protein stability. Specifically, the effect of certain cosolutes (inorganic salts) on protein...

2009/09/21

Comprehensive proteomic analysis of human endometrial fluid aspirate published by CIC bioGUNE's Proteomics Platform group.

The group of Felix Elortza at the Proteomics Platform of CIC bioGUNE has recently published a comprehensive proteomic characterization of the human endometrial fluid from healthy women. The work was carried out in collaboration with Proteomika S.L,...

2009/09/07

Detection of protein SUMOylation in vivo

The group of Manuel S. Rodríguez from the Proteomics Unit of CIC bioGUNE, working in collaboration with Prof. R.T. Hay from the University of Dundee, has recently published a cell-based protocol to be used in detection of protein SUMOylation....

2009/08/13

Loss of GNMT impairs liver regeneration

Researchers at the CICbioGUNE-CIBERedh led by José Maria Mato and M-Luz Martínez-Chantar, in collaboration with investigators at the Keck School of Medicine (USA) and at the University of Vanderbilt (USA), have discovered that mice...

2009/07/23

PHDs silencing promotes therapeutic revascularisation

Therapeutic neovascularisation represents an alternative treatment modality for patients with advanced ischemic coronary or peripheral artery occlusive disease. The hypoxia-inducible transcription factor (HIF) is a master regulator controlling genes...

2009/06/29

The site of the uptake and degradation of the Necrotic serpin in Drosophila melanogaster identified.

A new study of the uptake and degradation of the Necrotic serpin in Drosophila melanogaster, carried out by the Functional Genomic group led by David Gubb, was published in the June's edition of PLoS Genetics.

The Necrotic serpin controls a...

2009/06/19

A multidisciplinary approach using a combination of biophysical techniques reveals unexpected structural features in an archaeal CBS-domain containing protein.

A multidisciplinary approach using a combination of biophysical techniques, applied by researchers from the CIC bioGUNE´s Structural Biology Unit, has recently revealed unexpected structural features in an archaeal CBS-domain containing protein. CBS...

2009/06/17

Pyruvate carboxylase structural studies

Researchers from the CICbioGUNE´s Structural Biology Unit have recently resolved the three-dimensional structure for pyruvate carboxylase using cryo-electron microscopy. Pyruvate carboxylase is a conserved metabolic enzyme that forms oxalacetate, an...

2009/06/03

miRanalyzer, a new web server tool for smallRNAs deep-sequencing analysis, has been developed by a Functional Genomics group at CIC bioGUNE, led by Ana. M. Aransay, in collaboration with German bioinformaticians.

A paper by Michael Hackenberg et al, presenting miRanalyzer, a microRNA detection and analysis tool, was published in May's Web Server issue of Nucleic Acid Research journal. The project was completed in collaboration with...

2009/05/07

PLoS BIOLOGY publishes new work from a team of researchers led by Dr. Abrescia, investigating the RNA polymerase from Sulfolobus shibatae using X-ray crystallography.

Acid-loving Archaeon Reads DNA with Enzyme Strikingly Similar to Our Own.

2009/02/18

Evidence for LKB1/AMPK/eNOS cascade regulated by HGF, S-adenosylmethionine, and NO in hepatocyte proliferation.

Researchers at the CIC bioGUNE, in Bilbao, and colleagues at the Keck School of Medicine, in Los Angeles, have discovered a new biochemical pathway, involving the genes LKB1, AMPK, and eNOS that regulate liver growth. The findings, published in the...

2008/12/05

Custom meganucleases induce chromosomal gene repair without detectable genotoxicity.

Custom meganucleases that recognize and cleave a specific sequence of the human xeroderma pigmentosum gene induce chromosomal gene repair without detectable genotoxicity; the paper on the subject has been published recently in Nature. The structure...

2008/10/31

Cryo-electron microscopy shows ribosomes on the move.

Researchers from the Structural Biology Unit of CICbioGUNE have captured the structure of ribosomes during the movement of tRNAs. The study performed using cryo-EM analysis shows that ribosomes oscillate between two distinct conformations: a...

2008/10/15

Sumoylation in the synthesis of steroid hormones: smt3 is required for Drosophila melanogaster metamorphosis

A group from CIC bioGUNE, in collaboration with groups from Barcelona and Stockholm University, have demonstrated a role for sumoylation in the synthesis of steroid hormones. Steroidogenesis is conserved during evolution and in the fruit fly...

2008/10/08

Abnormal methionine metabolism leads to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and cancer.

Researchers at the CIC bioGUNE and the University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine, in Los Angeles, have published an article in The Annual Review of Nutrition on abnormal methionine metabolism leading to non-alcoholic fatty liver...

2008/07/03

The dual face of PHDs

A team at CIC bioGUNE in collaboration with investigators at the CNRS-UMR 6543 in France has proved that the PHDs, which are immediately inactivated by the lack of oxygen, become subsequently re-activated under chronic hypoxia. This feedback...

2008/04/08

Loss of GNMT induces liver cancer

A team at CIC bioGUNE, in collaboration with investigators at the University of Vanderbilt, the CNIO, and the Keck School of Medicine, have discovered that knockout mice deficient in GNMT, the main enzyme responsible for catabolism of excess...

2008/01/15

First structures solved at the CICbioGUNE SBU

The first macromolecular structures emerge as the result of the research at the Structural Biology Unit of the CICbioGUNE. EM maps for p53 bound to DNA obtained by electron microscopy (Dr. Mikel Valle), a protein-RNA complex (Dr. Lucy Malinina)...