Seal element of the university of freiburg in the shape of a clover

Research group of Carola Hunte

Portrait Carola Hunte

Prof. Dr. Carola Hunte

Professor of Biochemistry/Structural Biology
Signalling research centres BIOSS and CIBSS

Research

Biological membranes are essential for life. They provide specialized permeability barriers for cells and cell organelles, in which the interplay of lipids and membrane proteins enable fundamental processes of energy conversion, protein and solute transport, signal perception and transduction, and motility. The main facilitators of function are membrane proteins which also comprise the majority of drug targets. Protein structures are the basis for a complete understanding of mechanism of action and for elucidation of ligand binding. Yet, structures of membrane proteins in general and of eukaryotic and human membrane proteins in particular are still rare. In addition, little is known about interactions with lipids and intra-cellular signaling pathways critical for function.

The research of the group is focused on membrane proteins with important roles in biological energy conversion and ion transport. Structure, mechanism and function of respiratory multi-subunit complexes and of ion transporters and their interaction with intra-cellular signalling pathways are studied. The experimental approach combines molecular biological, biochemical and biophysical methods with emphasis on X-ray crystallography for structure determination.

Projects

Team

NamePhone
+49(0)761 203

Email

Prof. Dr. Carola Hunte

– 5279

carola.hunte(at)biochemie.uni-freiburg.de

Rosmery Rupp-Falconi

– 2790

rosmery.rupp-falconi(at)biochemie.uni-freiburg.de

Dr. Wei-Chun Kao

– 5277

wei-chun.kao(at)biochemie.uni-freiburg.de

Dr. Evgeny Mymrikov

– 5286

evgeny.mymrikov(at)biochemie.uni-freiburg.de

Dr. Christophe Wirth

– 5277

christophe.wirth(at)biochemie.uni-freiburg.de

Florian Becker

– 5275

florian.becker(at)biochemie.uni-freiburg.de

Nikolas Gross

– 5286

nikolas.gross(at)biochemie.uni-freiburg.de

Jorge Jimenez

– 5277

jorge.jimenez(at)biochemie.uni-freiburg.de

Daniela Loher

– 5277

daniela.loher(at)biochemie.uni-freiburg.de

Melanie Simon

– 97495

melanie.simon(at)biochemie.uni-freiburg.de

CV Carola Hunte

Since 2020Coordinator of the ‘South German Cryo-EM’ Block Allocation Group for the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF, Grenoble, France)
Since 2019Member of the speaker team, CIBSS – Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies, Cluster of Excellence, University of Freiburg
Since 2014Vice Dean for Research, Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg
Since 2011Spokeswoman of the Bioenergetics Working Group of the German Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (GBM)
Since 2010Full Professor of Biochemistry/Structural Biology, University of Freiburg
2019The Lars Ernster Lecture in Bioenergetics, Stockholm University, Sweden
2007 ‑ 2010Full Professor, Chair of Membrane Biology, University of Leeds/UK
2007Boris Rajewsky Prize Biophysics
2000 ‑ 2007Group Leader, Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, Frankfurt a. M.
2002FEBS Anniversary Prize
1995 ‑ 1999Postdoc at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics with Prof Dr H. Michel, Frankfurt a. M.
1993 ‑ 1994Research Assistant, University of Bonn
1989 ‑ 1993Dissertation, Dr rer. nat., University of Bonn
1987 ‑ 1989Scholarship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes)
1982 ‑ 1989Student of Biology – University of Bielefeld, University of Exeter/UK, University of Bonn

Funding

The Hunte working group receives research funding from the following funding programs of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG)

DFG logo
SFB 1381 Logo
NepGen Logo
Exzellenzcluster CIBSS logo
BIOSS Logo

Publications

Search term not found.
  • E.V.Mymrikov#*, C.Wirth#, J.I.Heinicke, J.Goll, B.A.Kern, C.Steck, A.K.Iaroslavtceva, A.Köttgen, C.Hunte* (2025). Molecular determinants of selective and high-affinity binding of the scaffold protein PDZK1 to the transporter URAT1. BioRxiv doi: https://www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2025.07.21.665923v1,#equal contribution, *corresponding
  • Lawson CL, Kryshtafovych A, Pintilie GD, Burley SK, Černý J, Chen VB, Emsley P, Gobbi A, Joachimiak A, Noreng S, Prisant MG, Read RJ, Richardson JS, Rohou AL, Schneider B, Sellers BD, Shao C, Sourial E, Williams CI, Williams CJ, Yang Y, Abbaraju V, Afonine PV, Baker ML, Bond PS, Blundell TL, Burnley T, Campbell A, Cao R, Cheng J, Chojnowski G, Cowtan KD, DiMaio F, Esmaeeli R, Giri N, Grubmüller H, Hoh SW, Hou J, Hryc CF, Hunte C, Igaev M, Joseph AP, Kao WC, Kihara D, Kumar D, Lang L, Lin S, Maddhuri Venkata Subramaniya SR, Mittal S, Mondal A, Moriarty NW, Muenks A, Murshudov GN, Nicholls RA, Olek M, Palmer CM, Perez A, Pohjolainen E, Pothula KR, Rowley CN, Sarkar D, Schäfer LU, Schlicksup CJ, Schröder GF, Shekhar M, Si D, Singharoy A, Sobolev OV, Terashi G, Vaiana AC, Vedithi SC, Verburgt J, Wang X, Warshamanage R, Winn MD, Weyand S, Yamashita K, Zhao M, Schmid MF, Berman HM, Chiu W. Outcomes of the EMDataResource cryo-EM Ligand Modeling Challenge. (2024) Nat Methods, doi: 10.1038/s41592-024-02321-7. Online ahead of print.
  • Patil S, Borisov O, Scherer N, Wirth C, Schlosser P, Wuttke M, Eckardt KU, Hunte C, Neubauer B, Köttgen A, Köttgen M. SLC25A48 is a human mitochondrial choline transporter (2023) medRxiv DOI
  • Su C, Rodriguez-Franco M, Lace B, Nebel N, Hernandez-Reyes C, Liang P, Schulze E, Mymrikov E, Groß N, Knerr J, Wang H, Siukstaite L, Keller J, Libourel C, Fischer A, Gabor K, Mark E, Popp C, Hunte C, Weber W, Wendler P, Stanislas T, Delaux PM, Einsle O, Grosse R, Römer W, Ott T. Remorin proteins serves as membrane topology scaffolds in plants (2022) BioRxiv DOI
  • Becker F,*, Fuchs S*, Refisch L, Drepper F, Bildl W, Schulte U, Liang S, Heinicke JI, Hansen SC, Kreutz C, Warscheid B, Fakler B. Mymrikov EV#, Hunte C# Conformational regulation and target-myristoyl switch of calcineurin B homologous protein 3 (2022) (*equal contribution, #corresponding) BioRxiv