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Research group of Hans-Georg Koch

Portrait Koch

Prof. Dr. Hans-Georg Koch

 

Research

Our work is focused on protein transport and protein assembly mechanisms in bacterial cells.

Bacteria like eukaryotic cells have to export a large subset of the cytosolically synthesized proteins into the inner membrane, the periplasmic space, the outer membrane or the extracellular space. To achieve this, bacteria have developed highly specific and highly sophisticated protein transport machineries.

Some of these pathways are found in bacteria only and are crucial determinants for bacterial pathogenicity; other pathways were originally “invented” by prokaryotes but have been conserved also in higher eukaryotes. Therefore bacteria are perfect model organisms for studying the molecular details of these essential processes.

Funding

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

DFG logo
SFB 1381 Logo
Exzellenzcluster CIBSS logo

Team

Research group of Hans-Georg Koch

CV Hans-Georg Koch

Seit 2012Member Executive Board and Vice-Director ‘Spemann Graduate School of Biology and Medicine’
Seit 2009Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
2003 ‑ 2008Senior Lecturer (Hochschuldozent) and group leader at the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Freiburg
2002Habilitation for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Medical Faculty, University of Freiburg
2001 ‑ 2002Assistenzprofessor (Habilitation) am Institut für Biochemie und Molekularbiologie, University of Freiburg
1997 ‑ 2000Postdoc in the group of Matthias Müller at the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Freiburg
1994 ‑ 1997NIH-fellow in the group of Fevzi Daldal at the Leidy Laboratory of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
1991 ‑ 1994PhD Thesis in the Lab of J.H. Klemme at the Institute of Microbiology and Biotechnology, Rhein. Friedrich-Willhelm University Bonn
(supported by a PhD fellowship of the “Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes”)
1990 ‑ 1991Diploma Thesis in the Lab of J.H. Klemme at the Institute of Microbiology and Biotechnology, Rhein. Friedrich-Willhelm University Bonn

Publications

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Czech L, Mais CN, Sarmah P, Krazat H, Giammarinaro P, Freibert S, Musial J, Bernningshausen O., Steinchen W, Beckmann R, Koch HG, Bange, G. (2022) Shutdown of secretory pathway by the bacterial alarmones (p)ppGpp. Nature Commun.  13:1069. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-28675-0.

Steinberg R, Origi A, Natriashvili A, Sarmah P, Licheva M, Walker PM, Kraft C, High S, Luirink J, Shi, WQ, Helmstädter M, Ulbrich MH, and Koch HG (2020) Post-translational insertion of small membrane proteins by the bacterial signal recognition particle. PloS Biology 18(9), e30000874, doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000874. 

Marckmann D, Trasnea PI, Schimpf J, Winterstein C, Andrei A, Schmollinger S, Blaby-Haas CE, Friedrich T, Daldal F, Koch HG (2019) The cbb3-type cytochrome oxidase assembly factor CcoG is a widely distributed cupric reductase. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 116, 21166-21175 doi: 10.1073/pnas.1913803116.

Jauss B, Petriman NA, Drepper F, Franz L, Steinberg R, Warscheid B, Koch HG (2019) Non-competitive binding of PpiD and YidC to the SecYEG translocon expands the global view on the SecYEG interactome in E. coli. J. Biol. Chem. 294, 19167-19183 doi: 10.1074/jbc.RA119.010686.

Sachelaru, I., Winter, L., Knyazev, D., Zimmermann, M., Vogt, A., Kuttner, R., Ollinger, N., Siligan, C., Pohl, P., and Koch, H.G.(2017). YidC and SecYEG form a heterotetrameric protein translocation channel. Sci. Rep. 7, 101.

Denks, K., Sliwinski, N., Erichsen, V., Borodkina, B., Origi, A., and Koch, H.G. (2017). The signal recognition particle contacts uL23 and scans substrate translation inside the ribosomal tunnel. Nat. Microbiol. 2, 16215.

Braig, D., Nero, T., Koch, H.G., Kaiser, B., Wang, X., Thiele, J.R., Morton, C., Zeller, J., Kiefer, J., Potempa, L.A., Mellett, N.A., Miles, L.A., Du, X., Meikle, P.J., Huber-Lang, M., Stark, G.B., Parker, M.W., Peter, K., and Eisenhardt, S.U. (2017). Transitional changes in the CRP structure lead to the exposure of pro-inflammatory binding sites. Nat. Commun. 8, 14188.

Kuhn, P., Draycheva, A., Vogt, A., Petriman, N.A., Sturm, L., Drepper, F., Warscheid, B., Wintermeyer, W., and Koch, H.G.(2015). Ribosome binding induces repositioning of the signal recognition particle receptor on the translocon. J. Cell Biol.211, 91-104.

Angelini, S., Deitermann, S., and Koch, H.G. (2005). FtsY, the bacterial SRP receptor functionally and physically interacts with the SecYEG translocon. EMBO Rep. 6, 476-481.

Alami, M., Lüke, I., Deitermann, S., Eisner, G., Koch, H.G., Brunner, J., and Müller, M. (2003). Differential interactions between a twin-arginine signal peptide and its translocase in Escherichia coli. Mol. Cell 12, 937-946.

Neumann-Haefelin, C., Schäfer, U., Müller, M., and Koch, H.G. (2000). SRP-dependent cotranslational targeting and SecA-dependent translocation analyzed as individual step in the export of a bacterial protein. EMBO J. 19, 6419-6426.