

Project Z03 – Peptide synthesis and membrane protein (GPCR) expression
The CRC consortium aims to investigate rhodopsin-like peptide-ligand GPCRs or adhesion GPCRs that are activated by peptide segments. The central goal of the Z03 project is to facilitate experimental approaches on the focused GPCRs by providing sufficient amounts of wild-type or chemically modified peptides as well as efficient GPCR-target plasmid construct design, test-expression and stabilization strategies of individual GPCR proteins for projects requiring to work in vitro on the purified samples. Furthermore, standardized approaches and protocols shall be worked out and applied. Z03 will be involved in the training within IRTG.
Contact

Dr. Patrick Scheerer (Project Leader)
Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Institute for Medical Physics and Biophysics
Group Protein X-ray Crystallography & Signal Transduction
Charitéplatz 1, D-10117 Berlin
Phone +49 30 450 524 178
E-Mail
Web biophysik.charite.de/forschung/ag_scheerer

Prof. Dr. Annette Beck-Sickinger (Project Leader)
Leipzig University, Faculty of Life Sciences
Institute of Biochemistry
Brüderstrasse 34, D-04103 Leipzig
Phone +49 341 97 36 900
E-Mail
Web uni-leipzig.de/agbs/

Karin Mörl (Senior Scientist)
Leipzig University, Faculty of Life Sciences
Institute of Biochemistry
Brüderstrasse 34, D-04103 Leipzig
Phone +49 341 97 36797
E-Mail
Web biochemie.lw.uni-leipzig.de
Resources
We can provide for the individual CRC-projects…
- Individual peptide synthesis
Strategic planning of in vitro GPCR experiments - Pre-testing of GPCR cloning/expression/purification/solubilisation
- Production of G-protein or arrestin samples
- Nanodisc/SMALPs integration for further investigations
- Supervision, tips and tricks for cell culture techniques
- Biophysical methods (in house) – MST, nDSF, BRET/FRET, SPR-like

Peptide Synthesis – Leipzig University
Karin Mörl (Senior Scientist), Ronny Müller (Technician)
Cloning/Expression/Protein purification/cell culture – Charité Berlin
Brain Bauer (Technician), David Speck (PhD), Anja Koch (Technician), Michal Szczepek (Scientist A01)
Biophysical methods – Charité Berlin
Michal Szczepek (Scientist A01)
Publications
Canzler S, Fischer M, Ulbricht D, Ristic N, Hildebrand PW, Staritzbichler R. ProteinPrompt: a webserver for predicting protein–protein interactions. Bioinformatics Advances. 2022, Volume 2, Issue 1, vbac059, https://doi.org/10.1093/bioadv/vbac059.
Nemec K, Schihada H, Kleinau G, Zabel U, Grushevskyi EO, Scheerer P, Lohse MJ, Maiellaro I. Functional modulation of PTH1R activation and
signaling by RAMP2. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2022; 119:e2122037119.
Höpfner F, Paisdzior S, Reininghaus N, Sohail I, Scheerer P, Annibale P, Biebermann H, Kühnen P. Evaluation of Pharmacological Rescue of Melanocortin-4 Receptor Nonsense Mutations by Aminoglycoside. Life (Basel). 2022; 12:1793.
Philippe A, Kleinau G, Gruner JJ, Wu S, Postpieszala D, Speck D, Heidecke H, Dowell SJ, Riemekasten G, Hildebrand PW, Kamhieh-Milz J, Catar R, Szczepek M, Dragun D, Scheerer P. Molecular Effects of Auto-Antibodies on Angiotensin II Type 1 Receptor Signaling and Cell Proliferation. Int J Mol Sci. 2022 Apr 2;23(7):3984. doi: 10.3390/ijms23073984. PMID: 35409344
Reininghaus N, Paisdzior S, Höpfner F, Jyrch S, Cetindag C, Scheerer P, Kühnen P, Biebermann H. A Setmelanotide-like Effect at MC4R Is Achieved by MC4R Dimer Separation. Biomolecules. 2022 Aug 15;12(8):1119. doi: 10.3390/biom12081119. PMID: 36009013.
Rudolf S, Kaempf K, Vu O, Meiler J, Beck-Sickinger AG, Coin I. Binding of natural peptide ligands to the neuropeptide Y5 receptor. Angew Chem
Int Ed Engl. 2022; 61:e202108738.
Speck D, Kleinau G, Meininghaus M, Erbe A, Einfeldt A, Szczepek M, Scheerer P, Pütter V. Expression and Characterization of Relaxin Family Peptide Receptor 1 Variants. Front Pharmacol. 2022 Jan 28;12:826112. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2021.826112. eCollection 2021. PMID: 35153771 Free PMC article.
Yang Y, Stensitzki T, Sauthof L, Schmidt A, Piwowarski P, Velazquez Escobar F, Michael N, Nguyen AD, Szczepek M, Brünig FN, Netz RR, Mroginski MA, Adam S, Bartl F, Schapiro I, Hildebrandt P, Scheerer P, Heyne K. Ultrafast proton-coupled isomerization in the phototransformation of phytochrome. Nat Chem. 2022 May 16. doi: 10.1038/s41557-022-00944-x. Online ahead of print. PMID: 3557791
Bergmann R, Chollet C, Els-Heindl S, Ullrich M, Berndt N, Pietzsch J, Máthé D, Bachmann M, Beck-Sickinger AG. Development of a ghrelin receptor inverse agonist for positron emission tomography. Oncotarget. 2021; 12:450-474.
Heyder NA, Kleinau G, Speck D, Schmidt A, Paisdzior S, Szczepek M, Bauer B, Koch A, Gallandi M, Kwiatkowski D, Bürger J, Mielke T, Beck-Sickinger A, Hildebrand P, Spahn CMT, Hilger D, Schacherl M, Biebermann H, Hilal T, Kühnen P, Kobilka BK, Scheerer P. Structures of active melanocortin-4 receptor−Gs-protein complexes with NDP-α-MSH and setmelanotide. Cell Research. 2021, 31(11):1176-1189. doi: 10.1038/s41422-021-00569-8. PMID: 34561620.
Işbilir A, Serfling R, Möller J, Thomas R, De Faveri C, Zabel U, Scarselli M, Beck-Sickinger AG, Bock A, Coin I, Lohse MJ, Annibale P. Determination of G-protein-coupled receptor oligomerization by molecular brightness analyses in single cells. Nat Protoc. 2021; 16:1419-1451.
Paisdzior S, Dimitriou IM, Schöpe PC, Annibale P, Scheerer P, Krude H, Lohse MJ, Biebermann H, Kühnen P. Differential Signaling Profiles of MC4R Mutations with Three Different Ligands. Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Feb 12;21(4). pii: E1224. doi: 10.3390/ijms21041224. PMID: 32059383
Vogel A, Bosse M, Gauglitz M, Wistuba S, Schmidt P, Kaiser A, Gurevich VV, Beck-Sickinger AG, Hildebrand PW, Huster D. The dynamics of the neuropeptide Y receptor type 1 investigated by solid-state NMR and molecular dynamics simulation. Molecules. 2020; 25:5489.