Membrane Trafficking in Aging:
Along the Protein Highway

Christoph Kaether’s research group Membrane Trafficking lays its focus on the trafficking and localization of proteins within cells, mainly of membrane proteins. These membrane proteins include receptors responsible for correct protein trafficking and transmembrane signal transduction as well as proteins that are involved in aging.

All research foci aim at identifying the basic cell biological processes as possible targets for therapies of age-related diseases.

Methods

We use a large number of different methods. Among those are:

• Cloning of reporter proteins or GFP-tagged proteins and site-directed mutagenesis of these
• Expression constructs are transfected in cell lines or primary neurons
• Microscopy analyses (video-, confocal-, apotome-) or biochemical analyses (blot, IP, deglycosylation and others)
• In addition we use mouse models
• High-throughput screening of the human genome to find further proteins involved in the notch signal transduction