June 2nd, 2020 – Guest Speaker: Sebastian Maurer
UPDATE – the seminar has been postponed to June 2nd 2020 (mark your calendar – you don’t want to miss out on the exciting data and findings that Sebastian is going to present!)
TALK CANCELED – Unfortunately Sebastian cannot make it on October 17th. We are trying to postpone the talk – stay tuned for updates…
‘Wenn du Tore schießen möchtest, musst du an der richtigen Stelle stehen’ (if you want to score goals you have to be in the right spot) – that’s what children get taught by their football trainers. If you want to be ‘the fox in the box’ positioning is very important.
This is also true for RNAs. Many mRNAs exhibit a specific sub-cellular localization allowing localized production of proteins. This is of importance in many biological settings: e.g. it equips synapses with a unique proteome, allows directed cell migration, and determines the body axes during early embryonic development.
In mammalian neurons, the asymmetric distribution of mRNAs and local protein synthesis is required for essential processes as cell polarization, migration and synaptic plasticity underlying long-term memory formation. However, the essential components driving cytoplasmic mRNA transport in neurons and mammalian cells are not known.
Mark your calendars: On October 17th at 2p.m. in H53, Sebastian Maurer from the Centre for Genomic regulation (CRG) in Barcelona, Spain, will report the first reconstitution of a mammalian mRNA transport system. His studies reveal that the tumour suppressor adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) forms stable complexes with the axonally localised b-actin and b2B-tubulin mRNAs which are linked to a heterotrimeric kinesin-2 via the cargo adaptor KAP3. APC activates kinesin-2 and both proteins are sufficient to drive specific transport of defined mRNA packages. Guanine-rich sequences located in 3’UTRs of axonal mRNAs increase transport efficiency and balance the access of different mRNAs to the transport system. These findings establish for the first time a minimal set of proteins capable of driving kinesin-based, mammalian mRNA transport.
