Research Group STROUS

Faculty of Medicine, UMC Utrecht, Dept. Cell Biology
Contact: Prof. G. Strous
E-mail: g.j.a.m.strous@umcutrecht.nl
Website: www.med.uu.nl/celbiol/studentprojects.htm

General research focus: How does the growth hormone receptor work?

All eukaryotic cells critically depend on the compartmentalization of biochemical reactions in distinct intracellular compartments to provide optimal environments for enzymes with often distinct pH, redox and substrate requirements. Critical to the generation and maintenance of these compartments is their ability to communicate with each other via tubulo-vesicular transport carriers to exchange content such as substrates and co-factors. Genetic lesions in these processes are often lethal. Acquired perturbations due for instance to viral and microbial infections, or aging generally lead to more or less serious human diseases. Our research aim is to define general principles underlying organelle maintenance and communication. Because this is a fundamental question that is approached with a wide variety of methods, its results can be applied to a wide variety of scientific problems.

Research lines:
1. Cell Biology and signal transduction of growth hormone receptor (Strous)
2. Molecular mechanisms of membrane transport (van der Sluijs)
3. Principles of organelle inheritance during cell division (van der Sluijs)
4. Protein sorting in endosomes (Stoorvogel)
5. The role of endosomes in neuron function (Klumperman)
6. Mechanisms of antigen presentation (Kleijmeer)
7. Golgi stack formation in Drosophila melanogaster (Rabouille

Techniques:
Combination of generic molecular biology, protein biochemistry, applied bio-informatics, fluorescence microscopy, live cell imaging, electronmicroscopy, tomography, image analysis, drosophila genetics

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