Molecular Cell Biology (Prof. Dr. Peter Nick)

Fritz-Haber-Weg, Gbd. 30.43 (Biology Tower), 5. floor. e-mail. How to find us

Interview in Biospektrum

Living is Searching (Springer-Nature 2023)

Secretary

• Herr Jochen Krüger, R501, Tel. 0721-608 42142

INSTITUTE SEMINARS

the journal with the longest tradition in cell biology (Springer-Nature). We publish it. more...

​

Secret Life on Leaves: Methylotrophs

There is no corner on our plant that would not be colonised by microbes. While, for many years, it was thought to be random,  who lives on, in, and around organisms, it has become clear that there are very tight relationships between these microbes and the "host" and that this often decides over health versus disease, or over resilience to susceptibility. The human gut microbiome has meanwhile been understood as central factor for heatlh, and for plants the microbes around the root have emerged as crucial factor for the resilience against stress. However, also other regions of the plant are targets of colonisation, and here, we still know very little. Prof. Dr. Kosuke Shiraishi of Kyoto University is known as one of the pioneers of research into the phyllosphere, i.e., the microbes living on leaves. Here, so-called methylotrophic microbes are dominant - these organisms can live on C1-compounds, such as methane, methanol, or formic acid. This renders them not only interesting for biotechnology, but they might also play an important role in combatting global climate change. Prof. Shiraishi speaks in frame of the Biological Colloquium

Mo, 16. December 2024 ,17:30, Rudolf-Criegee-Hörsaal (HS4), bld. 30.41.

Prof. Dr. Kosuke Shiraishi: Molecular Basis for Physiology of Methylotrophs in the Phyllosphere
Laboratory of Microbial Biotechnology, Division of Applied Life Sciences, Kyoto University
Dr. Islam Katthab, AG Peter Nick

The Origin of Grapevine

Four years of hard work, almost 4000 genomes - the fruit of this effort has now been published in Science. The Wild Grapevine Collection of the KIT had an important role here. It could be shown that Grapevine was domesticated twice independently, once in the Caucasus to produce wine, a second time in the Near East to get table grapes. During its migration to the West, there were numerous love affairs with local wild grapevines, giving rise to the large diversity of grapevines. This project joined people from 16 countries, despite sometimes difficult political circumstances and allows a deep look into the complex history of this crop plant that not only founded civilisations, but was also one of the first globally traded goods, breaching the borders of geography, language, and religion. The treasure of knowledge generated in this project has not even been scratched - during the time, when grapevine, by an interplay between climatic disruptions and human migration, conquered many regions, it collected genes that help to cope with adverse conditions. These genes can help now to safeguard viticulture against the consequences of climate change - this is exactly, what we do now in our Interreg Upper Rhine project Kliwiresse. Seminar as part of the Saturday University Freiburg.

Science article

Interview with the Washington Post

Press release by the KIT

Youtube on the impact of the project for the region

​

The new "Strasburger"

127 years ago Eduard Strasburger founded the textbook of botany, which appeared now in the 38. edition - this makes the "Strasburger" the biology textbook with the longest history. Peter Nick contributed a couple of 100 pages to the topics structure and function of the plant body and plant development. The "Strasburger" pursues the goal to depict the entire knowledge on plants, comprehensively, up-to-date, and at the same time filtered. Even though it had never been easier to acquire information, the problem is progressively to filter relevant from irrelevant. Textbooks are, therefore, not outdated, but more important than ever. more...

FKI

The State Teaching Award 2015 was given to Peter Nick and Mathias Gutmann. The money was used to found the Forum. Beyond faculties and disciplines, we debate here on controversial topics. In WS 2024-2025 we look at sustainability. more...

​

Genome of plant dolphins deciphered

When plants conquered terrestrial habitats around half a billion years aog, they had to face a hostile environment. Their success paved the way for other terrestrial life forms. Genetic changes increased the resilience of those plants. Exactly those genes are needed now to adjust our agriculture to cope with the consequences of climate change. Half a billion years are a very long time, though and it is very difficult to discriminate changes due to the new lifestyle from those that occurred due to other reasons during that very long period. Nature comes to our help with a curious phenomenon - as some mammals returned to aquatic life, also some flowering plants returned to an amphibic lifestyle. For this purpose they are able to produce different leaves that not only differ in shape, but also with respect to physiology. The Water Wisteria, Hygrophila difformis, is one of these plant dolphins and is currently investigated in the team of Dr. Jathish Ponnu from our department, who develops this plant into a new model for plant stress. Now, together with Chinese partners, he reached a key point: the genome of this species has been deciphered and the genes that are turned on our off during the transition between air and water could be identified.

Publication

Li G, Zhao X, Yang J, Hu S, Ponnu J, Kimura S, Hwang I, Torii KU, Hou H. Water wisteria genome reveals environmental adaptation and heterophylly regulation in amphibious plants. Plant Cell Environ. 2024 Jul 30. doi: 10.1111/pce.15050.

Cold Resilience from the Black Forest

Climate change is more than heat stress. The blurred seasonality means often untimely cold snaps. For the strawberry production in the Mediterranean this is turning progressively problematic. However, nature offers solutions - we just need to sustain and valorise its diversity. This was the idea behind the Gene Bank for Crop Wild Relatives initiated a bit more than a decade ago by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture. Here, we were in charge for the Southwest of Germany. In frame of the project Fragananas, funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, we collaborated with partners in Egypt and were able to find some "tough guys" among German wild strawberries and use them to understand the basis of cold tolerance. A especially potent variant of the gene switch Cold Box Factor 4 induces a strong accumulation of the antifreeze protein Xero 2. With the help of the metabolomcis platform of Dr. Weinert at the Max-Rubner-Institute it was then possible to find metabolic changes that mediate cold tolerance, for instance the induction of tyrosol, the signal compound gamma butyric acid, or the accumulation of the amino acid proline. These findings do not only allow to predict the cold tolerance of strawberry, but also to improve it by introgression of the wild genes.

Press release of the KIT

Publication

209. Kanbar A, Weinert CH, Kottutz D, La Th, Abuslima E, Kabil F, Hazman M, Egert B, Trierweiler B, Kulling SE, Nick P (2024) Cold Tolerance of Woodland Strawberry (Fragaria vesca) is linked to Cold Box Factor 4 Cold and the dehydrin Xero2. J Exp Bot 75, 5857-5879 - pdf

From the Root Chip to the Bioherbicide

Plants have sly old ears. An estimated million compounds occur only in plants and have the task to convince other life forms to do work for plants. Often, cellular signalling is hijacked. We humans are no exception – whether it is caffeine, opium, or Cannabis, specific plant compounds play tricks to our neural system. One particular weird case of plant manipulation could now be uncovered. Our Mints beat competitors by a „Deathly After Eight“. Why does this not damage the sender himself – here the compounds are most abundant? Using Spearmint as paradigm, we could demonstrate that the scent, carvone, persuades root cells of the target to dissolve its microtubules and initiate a ritual form of suicide. Changing minute details on fhte molecule eliminates this effect. Thus, carvone is not a poison, but a persuasive signal. Obviously, this signal can bind to a specific receptor that otherwise has the task to ward off microbial attacks. In that context, cellular suicide makes perfectly sense. By its sacrifice, the infected cell kills the intruder and protects the others. We suspect that Mints have modified their own receptor, such that carvone cannot bind. Signals that eliminate competitors – this has, of course, considerable potential for the development of novel bioherbicides. In the next step we want to find out, who listens to the signal and identify the receptor. Schritt wollen wir nun herausfinden, wer auf dieses Signal hört. This sophisticated strategy could be uncovered by our project DialogProTec (Science Offensive of Interreg Upper Rhine) during an interdisciplinary cooperation with partners at the Campus North IMT, Université de Strasbourg, the Institute for Biological Agents in Kaiserslautern, the University of Freiburg, and the Research Institute for biological Agriculture in Frick and publish in the Journal of Experimental Botany.

Publication

210. Hering N, Schmit AC, Herzog E, Corbin LT, Schmidt-Speicher L, Ahrens R, Fauconnier ML, Nick P (2024) Spearmint Targets Microtubules by (−)-Carvone. Hort Res. doi.org/10.1093/hr/uhae151 - pdf