Elisa Izaurralde

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Elisa Izaurralde (born September 20, 1959 in Montevideo , Uruguay; † April 30, 2018 in Tübingen ) was a molecular biologist and biochemist.

Life

Izaurralde studied biochemistry at the University of Geneva with a doctorate in 1989. She was a post-doctoral student at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg from 1990 to 1996 , then from 1996 to 1999 project manager at the Institute for Molecular Biology at the University of Geneva and from 1999 to 2004 again at EMBL as project manager and 2004/2005 as senior scientist. From 2005 to 2006 she coordinated the gene expression program at EMBL. Since 2005 she has been director at the MPI for Developmental Biology in Tübingen. She was also an honorary professor at the University of Tübingen.

plant

She dealt with the biology of RNA and its regulation in the cell, including the mechanism of the exit of the mRNA from the cell nucleus, stability and quality control of the mRNA and the shutdown of gene expression through RNA silencing .

In 2016, she and her group clarified the molecular mechanisms involved in the decapping of mRNA, an important step in the degradation of mRNA in the cell ( tail and cap are protective groups that prevent degradation, with the tail being removed first and then the cap before the actual degradation) . They were able to determine the structure and function of enzymes (Dcp2, Dcp1 and Edc1) that work together in decapping. Dcp2 performs the actual decapping and binds the mRNA. The binding of Dcp1 and Edc1 to Dcp2 stabilizes a conformation in the form of an internal 120 degree rotation, which only enables stronger binding of the m-RNA.

Honors and memberships

In 2008 she received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation together with Elena Conti , and in 2012 she received the Ernst Jung Prize . In 2009 she was elected a member of the Leopoldina and in 2016 a member of the Academia Europaea .

Fonts (selection)

  • with J. Lewis et al. a .: A nuclear cap binding protein complex involved in pre-mRNA splicing . Cell, Volume 78, 1994, pp. 657-668
  • with U. Kutay, C. von Kobbe, IW Mattaj, D. Görlich: The asymmetric distribution of the constituents of the Ran system is essential for transport into and out of the nucleus . EMBO Journal, Volume 16, 1997, pp. 6535-6547
  • with P. Grüter, C. Tabernero, C. von Kobbe, C. Schmitt, C. Saavedra, A. Bachi, M. Willm, BK Felber: TAP, the human homolog of Mex67p, mediates CTE-dependent RNA export from the nucleus . Molecular Cell, Vol. 1, 1998, pp. 649-659
  • with H. Le Hir, LE Maquat, MJ Moore: The spliceosome deposits multiple proteins 20–24 nucleotides upstream of mRNA exon – exon junctions . EMBO Journal, Volume 19, 2000, pp. 6860-6869
  • with H. Le Hir, D. Gatfield, MJ Moore: The exon-exon junction complex provides a binding platform for factors involved in mRNA export and nonsense-mediated mRNA decay . EMBO Journal, Volume 20, 2001, pp. 4987-4997
  • with A. Lingel, B. Simon, M. Sattler: Structure and nucleic-acid binding of the Drosophila Argonaute 2 PAZ domain . Nature, Volume 426, 2003, p. 465
  • with A. Eulalio, I. Behm-Ansmant: P bodies: at the crossroads of post-transcriptional pathways . Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, Volume 8, 2007, p. 9
  • with I. Behm-Ansmant, J. Rehwinkel, T. Doerks, A. Stark, P. Bork: mRNA degradation by miRNAs and GW182 requires both CCR4: NOT deadenylase and DCP1: DCP2 decapping complexes . Genes & development, Vol. 20, 2006, pp. 1885-1898
  • with A. Eulalio, I. Behm-Ansmant, D. Schweizer: P-body formation is a consequence, not the cause, of RNA-mediated gene silencing . Molecular and Cellular Biology, Vol. 27, 2007, pp. 3970-3981
  • with A. Eulalio, E. Huntzinger: Getting to the root of miRNA-mediated gene silencing . Cell, Volume 132, 2008, pp. 9-14
  • with E. Huntzinger: Gene silencing by microRNAs: contributions of translational repression and mRNA decay . Nature Reviews Genetics, Volume 12, 2011, p. 99
  • with S. Jonas: Towards a molecular understanding of microRNA-mediated gene silencing . Nature Reviews Genetics, Volume 16, 2015, p. 421

literature

  • Oliver Weichenrieder: Elisa Izaurralde (1959–2018) , in: Molecular Cell, Volume 70, June 21, 2018, pp. 993–994 (obituary). On-line

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Deciphering an important step in gene expression. Max Planck Campus Tübingen, May 20, 2016, accessed on May 3, 2018 . Valkov, Muthukumar, Chang, Jonas, Weichenrieder, Izaurralde: Structure of the Dcp2 – Dcp1 mRNA-decapping complex in the activated conformation . Nature Struct. Mol. Biol., Vol. 23, 2016, pp. 574-579, PMID 27183195 .
  2. ↑ Member entry of Elisa Izaurralde (with picture) at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 29, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Izaurralde, Elisa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Uruguayan biochemist
DATE OF BIRTH 20th September 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Montevideo
DATE OF DEATH April 30, 2018
Place of death Tübingen