
Andreas Paul Michael Weber- Prof. Dr.
- Chair at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
Andreas Paul Michael Weber
- Prof. Dr.
- Chair at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
About
445
Publications
107,943
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21,610
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Introduction
Current institution
Additional affiliations
May 2002 - March 2007
April 1994 - May 2002
April 2007 - present
Education
January 1996 - June 2002
Albertus-Magnus-Universität
Field of study
- Plant Biology
July 1991 - January 1996
October 1984 - June 1991
Publications
Publications (445)
Photosynthetic organisms use sunlight as an energy source but rely on respiration during the night and in non-photosynthetic tissues. Respiration also occurs in photosynthetically active cells, where its role is still unclear due to the lack of viable mutants. Mutations abolishing cytochrome c oxidase (complex IV) activity are generally lethal. In...
C 4 photosynthesis has arisen from the ancestral C 3 state in over sixty lineages of angiosperms. It is widely accepted that an early step in C 4 evolution is associated with the appearance of so-called C 2 photosynthesis caused by loss of glycine decarboxylase activity from mesophyll cells followed by activation in the bundle sheath. Although chan...
Photosynthesis underpins life on Earth, serving as the primary energy source while regulating global carbon and water cycles, thereby shaping climate and vegetation. Advancing photosynthesis research is essential for improving crop productivity and refining photosynthesis models across scales, ultimately addressing critical global challenges such a...
Drought response in plants is complex, involving integration across a range of physiological processes. However, our knowledge of how different aspects of drought response are linked at the genetic level is limited. We investigated multi-trait adaptation in Arabidopsis thaliana from the Cape Verde Islands (CVI). Using a high-throughput phenotyping...
Photorespiration causes a substantial decrease in crop yield because of mitochondrial decarboxylation. Alternative pathways (APs) have been designed to relocate the decarboxylation step or even fix additional carbon. To improve the success of transferring those engineered APs from model species to crops, we must understand how they will interact wi...
Background
The microbiome greatly affects health and wellbeing. Evolutionarily, it is doubtful that a host would rely on chance alone to pass on microbial colonization to its offspring. However, the literature currently offers only limited evidence regarding two alternative hypotheses: active microbial shaping by host genetic factors or transmissio...
Alga-dominated geothermal spring communities in Yellowstone National Park (YNP), USA have been the focus of many studies, however, relatively little is known about the composition and community interactions which underpin these ecosystems. Our goal was to determine, in three neighboring yet distinct environments in Lemonade creek, YNP, how cells co...
C 4 species have evolved more than 60 times independently from C 3 ancestors. This multiple and parallel evolution of the complex C 4 trait suggests common underlying evolutionary mechanisms, which could be identified by comparative analysis of closely related C 3 and C 4 species. Efficient C 4 function depends on a distinctive leaf anatomy that is...
Photorespiration causes a significant decrease in crop yield due to mitochondrial decarboxylation. Alternative pathways (APs) have been designed to relocate the decarboxylating step or even fix additional carbon. To improve the success of transferring those engineered APs from model species to crops we must understand how they will interact with me...
Quantification of cell growth is central to any study of photoautotrophic microorganisms. However, cellular self-shading and limited CO2 control in conventional photobioreactors lead to heterogeneous conditions that obscure distinct correlations...
C3 photosynthesis can be complemented with a C4 carbon concentrating mechanism (CCM) to minimize photorespiratory losses. C4 photosynthesis is often more efficient than C3 under steady‐state conditions. However, the C4 CCM depends on inter‐cellular metabolite concentration gradients, which must increase following increases in light intensity and co...
Due to low availability of CO2 in aquatic environment, microalgae have evolved a CO2 concentrating mechanism (CCM). It has long been thought that operation of CCM would suppress photorespiration by increasing the CO2 concentration at the Rubisco active site, but experimental evidence is scarce. To better explore the function of photorespiration in...
We investigated an alga-dominated geothermal spring community in Yellowstone National Park, USA. Our goal was to determine how cells cope with abiotic stressors during diurnal sampling that spanned over two orders of magnitude in solar irradiance. We report a community level response to toxic metal resistance and energy cycling that spans the three...
Quantification of cell growth is central to any study of photoautotrophic microorganisms. However, cellular self-shading and limited CO2 control in conventional photobioreactors lead to heterogeneous conditions that obscure distinct correlations between the environment and cellular physiology. Here we present a microfluidic cultivation platform tha...
The C4 photosynthetic pathway is hypothesized to have evolved from the ancestral C3 pathway through progressive changes in leaf anatomy and biochemistry with extant C3-C4 photosynthetic intermediate species representing phenotypes between species demonstrating full C3 and full C4 states. The Australian endemic genus Neurachne is the only known gras...
Motivation
Identifying cis-regulatory elements (CREs) is crucial for analyzing gene regulatory networks. Next generation sequencing methods were developed to identify CREs but represent a considerable expenditure for targeted analysis of few genomic loci. Thus, predicting the outputs of these methods would significantly cut costs and time investmen...
Photosynthetic organisms use sunlight as energy source but rely on respiration during the night and in non-photosynthetic tissues. Respiration is also active in photosynthetically active cells, where its role is still unclear due to a lack of viable mutants.
Plants lacking cytochrome c oxidase (complex IV) activity are generally lethal but were her...
Improving photosynthesis, the fundamental process by which plants convert light energy into chemical energy, is a key area of research with great potential for enhancing sustainable agricultural productivity and addressing global food security challenges. This perspective delves into the latest advancements and approaches aimed at optimizing photos...
The microbiome greatly affects health and wellbeing. Evolutionarily, it is doubtful that a host would rely on chance alone to pass on microbial colonization to its offspring. However, the literature currently offers inconclusive evidence regarding two alternative hypotheses: active microbial shaping by host genetic factors or transmission of a micr...
Cellular and physiological cycles are driven by endogenous pacemakers, the diurnal and circadian rhythms. Key functions such as cell cycle progression and cellular metabolism are under rhythmic regulation, thereby maintaining physiological homeostasis. The photoreceptors phytochrome and cryptochrome, in response to light cues, are central input pat...
C 3 ‐C 4 intermediate photosynthesis has evolved at least five times convergently in the Brassicaceae, despite this family lacking bona fide C 4 species. The establishment of this carbon concentrating mechanism is known to require a complex suite of ultrastructural modifications, as well as changes in spatial expression patterns, which are both tho...
Photosynthesis plays a vital role in acclimating to and mitigating climate change, providing food and energy security for a population that is constantly growing, and achieving an economy with zero carbon emissions. A thorough comprehension of the dynamics of photosynthesis, including its molecular regulatory network and limitations, is essential f...
Mitochondria play central roles in metabolism and metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes. MIC26, a MICOS complex subunit, was linked to diabetes and modulation of lipid metabolism. Yet, the functional role of MIC26 in regulating metabolism under hyperglycemia is not understood. We employed a multi-omics approach combined with functional assays...
Motivation: The identification of cis-regulatory elements (CREs) is crucial for the analysis of gene regulatory networks in plants. Several next generation sequencing (NGS)-based methods were developed to identify CREs. However, these methods can be time-consuming and costly. They also involve creating sequencing libraries for the entire genome. Si...
In contrast to its close homologue PLANT UNCOUPLING MITOCHONDRIAL PROTEIN 1 (UCP1), which is an abundant carrier protein in the mitochondria, UCP2 localizes to the Golgi.
In this work, we studied castor-oil plant Ricinus communis as a classical system for endosperm reserve breakdown. The seeds of castor beans consist of a centrally located embryo with the two thin cotyledons surrounded by the endosperm. The endosperm functions as major storage tissue and is packed with nutritional reserves, such as oil, proteins, an...
C 4 photosynthesis has arisen from the ancestral C 3 state in over sixty lineages of angio-sperms. It is widely accepted that an early step in C 4 evolution is restriction of glycine decarboxylase activity to bundle sheath cells to generate the so-called C 2 pathway. In C 2 Moricandia species, changes to the cis -regulatory region controlling expre...
Photosynthesis in both crops and natural vegetation allows light energy to be converted into chemical energy, and thus forms the foundation for almost all terrestrial trophic networks on Earth. The efficiency of photosynthetic energy conversion plays a crucial role in determining the portion of incident solar radiation that can be used to generate...
The identification of factors that regulate C/N utilization in plants can make a substantial contribution to optimization of plant health. Here we explored the contribution of pyridox(am)ine 5'-phosphate oxidase3 (PDX3), which regulates vitamin B6 homeostasis, in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). Firstly, N fertilization regimes showed that ammon...
Research on C4 and C3-C4 photosynthesis has attracted significant attention because the understanding of the genetic underpinnings of these traits will support the introduction of its characteristics into commercially relevant crop species. We used a panel of 19 taxa of 18 Brassiceae species with different photosynthesis characteristics (C3 and C3-...
Carbon concentrating mechanisms enhance the carboxylase efficiency of the central photosynthetic enzyme rubisco by providing supra-atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in its surrounding. In the C4 photosynthesis pathway, this feat is realised by combinatory changes to leaf biochemistry and anatomy. In contrast to the C4 pathway, carbon concentration...
Type 2 diabetes is characterized by insulin hypersecretion followed by reduced glucose-stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS). Here we show that acute stimulation of pancreatic islets with the insulin secretagogue dextrorphan (DXO) or glibenclamide enhances GSIS, whereas chronic treatment with high concentrations of these drugs reduces GSIS but protec...
Salinity stress is a major challenge for rice production, especially at seedling stage. To gain a comprehensive insight into the molecular mechanisms and potential candidate genes involved in rice salinity stress response, we integrated RNA-Seq and protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis to investigate the transcriptome dynamics of two c...
Mitochondria act as cellular hubs of energy transformation and metabolite conversion in most eukaryotes. Plant mitochondrial electron transport chains are particularly flexible, featuring alternative components, such as ALTERNATIVE NAD(P)H DEHYDROGENASES and ALTERNATIVE OXIDASES (AOXs), that can bypass proton translocation steps. PLANT UNCOUPLING M...
Research on crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) has in recent years focused on obligate CAM species, such as Kalanchoë fedtschenkoi and pineapple ( Ananas comosus ). To fully understand the plasticity of the CAM pathway, its evolutionary trajectory and regulation, genomic resources of additional species, including facultative CAM species are desirab...
The entry of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the biosphere is mediated by the enzyme Rubisco, which catalyzes the carboxylation of ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate (RuBP) as the entry reaction of the Calvin Benson Bassham cycle (CBBC), leading to the formation of 2 molecules of 3-phosphoglyceric acid (3PGA) per CO2 fixed. 3PGA is reduced to triose...
Energy production and metabolism are intimately linked to ecological and environmental constraints across the tree of life. In plants, which depend on sunlight to produce energy, the link between primary metabolism and the environment is especially strong. By governing CO2 uptake for photosynthesis and transpiration, leaf pores, or stomata, couple...
A key to achieve the goals put forward in the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, it will need transformative change to our agrifood systems. We must mount to the global challenge to achieve food security in a sustainable manner in the context of climate change, population growth, urbanization, and depletion of natural resources. Rice is...
Gene structural annotation is a critical step in obtaining biological knowledge from genome sequences yet remains a major challenge in genomics projects. Current de novo Hidden Markov Models are limited in their capacity to model biological complexity; while current pipelines are resource-intensive and their results vary in quality with the availab...
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have created a global climate crisis which requires immediate interventions to mitigate the negative effects on all aspects of life on this planet. As current agriculture and land use contributes up to 25% of total GHG emissions, plant scientists take center stage in finding possible solutions for a transition to sust...
A key to achieve the goals put forward in the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, it will need transformative change to our agrifood systems. We must mount to the global challenge to achieve food security in a sustainable manner in the context of climate change, population growth, urbanization, and depletion of natural resources. Rice is...
The symbiotic partnership between corals and dinoflagellate algae is crucial to coral reefs. Corals provide their algal symbionts with shelter, carbon dioxide and nitrogen. In exchange, the symbiotic algae supply their animal hosts with fixed carbon in the form of glucose. But how glucose is transferred from the algal symbiont to the animal host is...
Gynandropsis gynandra (Cleomaceae) is a cosmopolitan leafy vegetable and medicinal plant, which has also been used as a model to study C4 photosynthesis due to its evolutionary proximity to C3 Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). Here, we present the genome sequence of G. gynandra, anchored onto 17 main pseudo-molecules with a total length of 740 Mb...
Gynandropsis gynandra (Cleomaceae) is a cosmopolitan leafy vegetable and medicinal plant, which has also been used as a model to study C4 photosynthesis due to its evolutionary proximity to C3 Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). Here, we present the genome sequence of G. gynandra, anchored onto 17 main pseudo-molecules with a total length of 740 Mb...
Research on C4 and C3-C4 photosynthesis has attracted significant attention because the understanding of the genetic underpinnings of this trait will support the introduction of its characteristics into commercially relevant crop species. We used a panel of 19 taxa of 18 Brassiceae species with different photosynthesis characteristics (C3 and C3-C4...
Photosynthesis by which plants convert carbon dioxide to sugars using the energy of light is fundamental to life as it forms the basis of nearly all food chains. Surprisingly, our knowledge about its transcriptional regulation remains incomplete. Effort for its agricultural optimization have mostly focused on post-translational regulatory processes...
Carbon concentrating mechanisms enhance the carboxylase efficiency of the central photosynthetic enzyme rubisco by providing supra-atmospheric concentrations of CO 2 in its surrounding. In the C 4 photosynthesis pathway, this is achieved by combinatory changes to leaf biochemistry and anatomy. Carbon concentration by the photorespiratory glycine sh...
C3 -C4 intermediate photosynthesis has evolved multiple times convergently and independently in the Brassicaceae, although the family lacks bona fide C4 species. Evolution of C3 -C4 intermediate photosynthesis requires a reconfiguration of gene-regulatory networks, modified spatial expression patterns of multiple genes and ultrastructural adjustmen...
To survive and proliferate in diverse environments with varying climate and nutrient availability, plants modulate their metabolism. Achieving a balance between carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) use such that growth and defense mechanisms can be appropriately controlled is critical for plant fitness. The identification of factors that regulate C/N utiliz...
The growing world population and global increases in the standard of living both result in an increasing demand for food, feed and other plant‐derived products. In the coming years, plant‐based research will be among the major drivers ensuring food security and the expansion of the bio‐based economy. Crop productivity is determined by several facto...
Gynandropsis gynandra (Cleomaceae) is a cosmopolitan leafy vegetable and medicinal plant, which has also been used as a model to study C 4 photosynthesis due to its evolutionary proximity to Arabidopsis. Here, we present a high-quality genome sequence of G. gynandra , anchored onto 17 main super-scaffolds with a total length of 740 Mb, an N50 of 42...
Altering plant water use efficiency (WUE) is a promising approach for achieving sustainable crop production in changing climate scenarios. Here, we show that WUE can be tuned by alleles of a single gene discovered in elite maize (Zea mays) breeding material. Genetic dissection of a genomic region affecting WUE led to the identification of the gene...
As sessile organisms, plants must adapt their physiology and developmental processes to cope with challenging environmental circumstances, such as the ongoing elevation in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels. Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) is a cornerstone of plant metabolism and plays an essential role in redox homeostasis. Given tha...
Introduction:
Acute hemorrhage results in perfusion deficit and regional hypoxia. Since failure of intestinal integrity seem to be the linking element between hemorrhage, delayed multi organ failure, and mortality, it is crucial to maintain intestinal microcirculation in acute hemorrhage. During critical bleeding physicians increase FiO2 to raise...
Mitochondria play a key role in cellular metabolism. Analyses of the genome, the proteome, metabolic, physiological, and biochemical functions of mitochondria frequently require the isolation of intact and functional mitochondria from various plant tissues with sufficient yield. For this purpose, we generated a transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana (Arab...
Cleomaceae is closely related to Brassicaceae and includes C3, C3–C4, and C4 species. Thus, this family represents an interesting system for studying the evolution of the carbon concentrating mechanism. However, inadequate genetic information on Cleomaceae limits their research applications. Here, we characterized 22 Cleomaceae accessions [3 genera...
Mitochondria are highly dynamic organelles that are vital for eukaryotic cellular metabolism. Mitochondria account only for a small fraction of the total cell volume. As such, intact organelle isolation is a basic requirement to study mitochondrial biochemistry and physiology. However, established isolation procedures are tedious, and require a sub...
Photorespiration recovers carbon that would be otherwise lost following the oxygenation reaction of rubisco and production of glycolate. Photorespiration is essential in plants and recycles glycolate into usable metabolic products through reactions spanning the chloroplast, mitochondrion, and peroxisome. Catalase in peroxisomes plays an important r...
Subcellular compartmentalization confers evolutionary advantage to eukaryotic cells but entails the need for efficient interorganelle communication. Malate functions as redox carrier and metabolic intermediate. It can be shuttled across membranes through translocators. The interconversion of malate and oxaloacetate mediated by malate dehydrogenases...
Photorespiration recovers carbon that would be otherwise lost following the oxygenation reaction of rubisco and production of glycolate. Photorespiration is essential in plants and recycles glycolate into usable metabolic products through reactions spanning the chloroplast, mitochondrion, and peroxisome. Catalase in peroxisomes plays an important r...
Carbon monoxide (CO) is endogenously produced upon degradation of heme by heme oxygenases (HOs) and is suggested to act as a gaseous signaling molecule. The expression of HO-1 is triggered by the Nrf2-Keap1 signaling pathway which responds to exogenous stress signals and dietary constituents such as flavonoids and glucosinolates or reactive metabol...
The European Commission’s Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy, under the European Green Deal, acknowledges that innovative techniques, including biotechnology, may play a role in increasing sustainability. At the same time, organic farming will be promoted, and at least 25% of the EU’s agricultural land shall be under organic farming by 2030. How can both...
In honour of the 25th anniversary of Trends in Plant Science, we wanted to take a look back over some of the milestones from recent decades. Here, we asked authors of the June 2021 special issue to reflect on the changes that have occurred within the field of plant breeding during the past 25 years, as well as to contemplate what the future might h...
Significance
Photorespiration is essential for photosynthesis in an oxygen-containing atmosphere. By mass flow, photorespiration is exceeded only by photosynthetic carbon assimilation. Photorespiration, initiated by the oxygenation reaction of Rubisco, is a major constraint on the photosynthetic efficiency of C3 plants and consequently on crop yiel...
Altered transcript abundances and cell specific gene expression patterns that are caused by regulatory divergence play an important role in the evolution of C4 photosynthesis. How these altered gene expression patterns are achieved and whether they are driven by cis- or trans-regulatory changes is mostly unknown. To address this question, we invest...
Galdieria sulphuraria is a cosmopolitan microalga found in volcanic hot springs and calderas. It grows at low pH in photoautotrophic (use of light as a source of energy) or heterotrophic (respiration as a source of energy) conditions, using an unusually broad range of organic carbon sources. Previous data suggested that G. sulphuraria cannot grow m...
Moricandia is a genus belonging to the family Brassicaceae. C3 and C3C4 photosynthesis Moricandia species exist in a close phylogenetic proximity, as well as to Brassica crops. Here, we performed PacBio genome sequencing on M. moricandioides and M. arvensis. The genomes were assembled using Flye assembler, then polished with Illumina reads and redu...
Significance
Plant chloroplasts have acquired an evolutionary “redox switch” that regulates the activities of photosynthesis-related enzymes in response to a dynamically changing environment. Because the metabolic state in chloroplasts drastically fluctuates in response to changes in the surrounding environment, it has been considered essential to...
Plants provide food for humans, directly or through their use as feed for animals. However, arable land is becoming scarce and resources, including water and fertilizers, are becoming depleted under the effects of global climate change and the growing human population. To ensure food security for future generations, new approaches to improve crop p...
Motivation
Current state-of-the-art tools for the de novo annotation of genes in eukaryotic genomes have to be specifically fitted for each species and still often produce annotations that can be improved much further. The fundamental algorithmic architecture for these tools has remained largely unchanged for about two decades, limiting learning ca...
Aureochromes represent a unique type of blue light photoreceptors that possess a blue light sensing flavin-binding LOV-domain and a DNA-binding bZIP domain, thus being light-driven transcription factors. The diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum, a member of the essential marine primary producers, possesses four aureochromes (PtAUREO1a, 1b, 1c, 2). Here...
Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) plays a central role in redox metabolism in all domains of life. Additional roles in regulating posttranslational protein modifications and cell signaling implicate NAD as a potential integrator of central metabolism and programs regulating stress responses and development. Here we found that NAD negatively i...
Astrocyte dysfunction is a primary factor in hepatic encephalopathy (HE) impairing neuronal activity under hyperammonemia. In particular the early events causing ammonia-induced toxicity to astrocytes are not well understood. Using established cellular HE models, we show that mitochondria rapidly undergo fragmentation in a reversible manner upon hy...
The majority of childhood leukemias are precursor B cell-acute lymphoblastic leukemias (pB-ALL) caused by a combination of prenatal genetic predispositions and oncogenic events occurring after birth. Although genetic predispositions are frequent in children (>1-5%), fewer than 1% of genetically predisposed carriers will develop pB-ALL. While infect...
The chloroplastic 2-oxaloacetate/malate transporter (OMT1 or DiT1) takes part in the malate valve that protects chloroplasts from excessive redox poise through export of malate and import of oxaloacetate (OAA). Together with the glutamate/malate transporter (DCT1 or DiT2), it connects carbon with nitrogen assimilation, by providing 2-oxoglutarate f...
Stress-inducible heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) catalyzes the oxidative cleavage of heme yielding biliverdin, ferrous iron, and carbon monoxide (CO). Heme oxygenase activity has been attributed to antioxidant defense via the redox cycling system of biliverdin and bilirubin. There is increasing evidence that CO is a gaseous signaling molecule and plays a r...
C 4 photosynthesis evolved multiple times independently from ancestral C 3 photosynthesis in a broad range of flowering land plant families and in both monocots and dicots. The evolution of C 4 photosynthesis entails the recruitment of enzyme activities that are not involved in photosynthetic carbon fixation in C 3 plants to photosynthesis. This re...
A homologue of the mitochondrial succinate/fumarate carrier from yeast (Sfc1p) has been found in the Arabidopsis genome, named AtSFC1. The AtSFC1 gene was expressed in Escherichia coli, and the gene product was purified and reconstituted in liposomes. Its transport properties and kinetic parameters demonstrated that AtSFC1 transports citrate, isoci...
The chloroplastic oxaloacetate/malate transporter (OMT1 or DiT1) takes part in the malate valve that protects chloroplasts from excessive redox poise through export of malate and import of oxaloacetate (OAA). Together with the glutamate/malate transporter (DCT1 or DiT2), it connects carbon with nitrogen assimilation, by providing α-ketoglutarate fo...
Despite the fundamental importance of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) for metabolism, the physiological roles of NAD+ carriers in plants remains unclear. We previously characterized the Arabidopsis thaliana gene (At1g25380), named AtNDT2, encoding a protein located in the mitochondrial inner membrane, which imports NAD+ from the cytosol us...
Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, the key enzyme of photosynthetic carbon fixation, is able to accept both O2 and CO2 as substrates. When it fixes O2, it produces 2-phosphoglycolate, which is detoxified by photorespiration and recycled to the Calvin–Benson–Bassham cycle. To complete photorespiration, metabolite transport across three...
Photorespiration has been shown to be essential for all oxygenic phototrophs in the present-day oxygen-containing atmosphere. The strong similarity of the photorespiratory cycle in cyanobacteria and plants led to the hypothesis that oxygenic photosynthesis and photorespiration co-evolved in cyanobacteria, and then entered the eukaryotic algal linea...
Mild systemic hypothermia increases gastric mucosal oxygenation (μHbO2) during hemorrhagic shock in dogs. In the context of critical blood loss hypothermia might be fatal due to adverse side effects. Selective regional hypothermia might overcome these limitations. The aim of our study was to analyze the effects of regional gastric and oral mucosal...
Photosynthesis in plant cells would not be possible without the supportive role of mitochondria. However, isolating mitochondria from plant cells for physiological and biochemical analyses is a lengthy and tedious process. Established isolation protocols require multiple centrifugation steps and substantial amounts of starting material. To overcome...
Background:
Hypercapnia improves gastric microcirculatory oxygenation (μHbO2) and increases vasopressin plasma levels, whereas V1A receptor blockade abolishes the increase of μHbO2. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of exogenous vasopressin (AVP) in increasing doses on microcirculatory perfusion and oxygenation and systemic hemodyna...
Diffusion barriers enable plant survival under fluctuating environmental conditions. They control internal water potential and protect against biotic or abiotic stress factors. How these protective molecules are deposited to the extracellular environment is poorly understood. We here examined the role of the Arabidopsis ABC half-size transporter At...
Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) is an essential coenzyme required for all living organisms. In eukaryotic cells, the final step of NAD+ biosynthesis is exclusively cytosolic. Hence, NAD+ must be imported into organelles to support their metabolic functions. Three NAD+ transporters belonging to the mitochondrial carrier family (MCF) have be...
Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a severe neuropsychiatric syndrome frequently observed in patients with liver disease or portosystemic shunt. In HE, astrocyte dysfunction is a primary factor impairing neuronal activity under hyperammonemia. Here we show that mitochondria in human- and rat-derived cellular HE models undergo fragmentation within hours...
Photosynthesis in plant cells would not be possible without the supportive role of mitochondria. However, isolation of mitochondria from plant cells, for physiological and biochemical analyses, is a lengthy and tedious process. Established isolation protocols require multiple centrifugation steps and substantial amounts of starting material. To ove...
The role and extent of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in eukaryotes are hotly disputed topics that impact our understanding of the origin of metabolic processes and the role of organelles in cellular evolution. We addressed this issue by analyzing 10 novel Cyanidiales genomes and determined that 1% of their gene inventory is HGT-derived. Numerous H...
Photorespiration is frequently considered a wasteful and inefficient process. However, mutant analysis demonstrated that photorespiration is essential for recycling of 2‐phosphoglycolate in C3 and C4 land plants, in algae, and even in cyanobacteria operating carboxysome‐based carbon (C) concentrating mechanisms. Photorespiration links photosyntheti...