Journal Article

Heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) isoforms are key players in the regulation of protein homeostasis and cell death pathways and are therefore attractive targets in cancer research. Developing nucleotide-competitive inhibitors or allosteric modulators, however, has turned out to be very challenging for this protein family, and no Hsp70-directed therapeutics have so far become available. [...]

Acetyl esterases belonging to the carbohydrate esterase family 16 (CE16) is a growing group of enzymes, with exceptional diversity regarding substrate specificity and regioselectivity. However, further insight into the CE16 specificity is required for their efficient biotechnological exploitation. [...]

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is an opportunistic pathogen that infects a majority of the world population. It may cause severe disease in immunocompromised people and lead to pregnancy loss or grave disabilities of the fetus upon congenital infection. [...]

Various subspecies of the unicellular parasite Trypanosoma brucei cause sleeping sickness, a neglected tropical disease affecting millions of individuals and domestic animals. Immune evasion mechanisms play a pivotal role in parasite survival within the host and enable the parasite to establish a chronic infection [...]

To survive bacteriophage (phage) infections, bacteria developed numerous anti-phage defence systems1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Some of them (for example, type III CRISPR–Cas, CBASS, Pycsar and Thoeris) consist of two modules: a sensor responsible for infection recognition and an effector that stops viral replication by destroying key cellular components8,9,10,11,12. [...]

With the advent of serial X-ray crystallography on microfocus beamlines at free-electron laser and synchrotron facilities, the demand for protein microcrystals has significantly risen in recent years. However, by in vitro crystallization extensive efforts are usually required to purify proteins and produce sufficiently homogeneous microcrystals. [...]

Symbiosis receptor- like kinase SYMRK is required for root nodule symbiosis between legume plants and nitrogen- fixing bacteria. To understand symbiotic signaling from SYMRK, we determined the crystal structure to 1.95 Å and mapped the phosphorylation sites onto the intracellular domain. [...]

We consider black hole formation due to the gravitational collapse produced by large density fluctuations during an epoch of reheating with a stiff equation of state and calculate the induced gravitational wave spectrum. By considering the existing bounds on the total energy density of gravitational waves today, we find constraints on the parameter space of this scenario. [...]

Scenarios with new physics particles feebly interacting with the Standard Model sector provide compelling candidates for dark matter searches. Geared with a set of new experiments for the detection of neutrinos and long-lived particles the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has joined the hunt for these elusive states. [...]

We examine the implications of the weak gravity conjecture for the mechanisms for discharging cosmological constant via membrane nucleations. Once screening fluxes and membranes which source them enter, and weak gravity bounds are enforced, a generic de Sitter space must be unstable. [...]