Johann Deisenhofer
Johann Deisenhofer (born September 30, 1943 in Zusamaltheim , Dillingen district on the Danube ) is a German biophysicist . He was mainly concerned with structural analysis of the structure and function of protein molecules . For the elucidation of the three-dimensional structure of the photosynthetic reaction center of purple bacteria , he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1988 together with Robert Huber and Hartmut Michel .
life and work
Family and school time
Johann Deisenhofer is the first child of the farmer Johann Deisenhofer and his wife Thekla (née Magg), and his sister Antonie was born in 1948. Deisenhofer attended elementary school in Zusamaltheim and in 1956 switched to the boys' middle school Hl. Kreuz, Donauwörth . He then attended the state secondary school in Wertingen from 1957 to 1959. His achievements and results entitle him to attend the Holbein-Gymnasium in Augsburg in 1959 , where he passed the Abitur in 1963. After 18 months of military service, he began studying physics at the Technical University of Munich in 1965 with a “ scholarship for particularly gifted people ” from the Bavarian State Ministry for Education and Culture . According to his own statements, it was primarily his interest in modern physics and astronomy that motivated him to study physics, including reading popular books by Fred Hoyle .
Study and early research
During his studies Deisenhofer noticed that theoretical physics differed greatly from his expectations, at the same time he developed an increasing interest in solid-state physics . In 1971 he completed his diploma thesis in Klaus Dransfeld's group under the supervision of Karl-Friedrich Renk, which led to his first scientific publication in 1971, an article in the journal Physical Review Letters about a new technology for the detection of phonons . At that time, Dransfeld dealt with, among other things, biophysical issues, whereby Deisenhofer completed his dissertation in 1971 at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry (at that time still "Max Planck Institute for Protein and Leather Research") in Martinsried with Robert Huber together with Wolfgang Steigemann started. They worked together on the crystallographic refinement of the structure determination of pancreatic trypsin - inhibitor of the bovine by an optimization of the X-ray structure analysis and the analysis and published the results in the journal Acta Crystallographica . Deisenhofer finished his dissertation at the end of 1974 with the thesis "Crystallographic refinement of the structure of the pancreatic trypsin inhibitor at 1.5 Å resolution".
Following his dissertation, Huber offered him a post-doctoral position for two years, which he accepted and which was converted into a permanent position in 1976. Deisenhofer worked with Peter M. Colman and Walter Palm from the University of Graz to the human immunoglobulin Kol, a myeloma protein from the group of immunoglobulins of class G . After determining the structure of this protein, he worked with Huber until 1980 on Peter Colman's work on the human Fc fragment and the complex with an Fc-binding part of protein A from Staphylococcus aureus . Subsequently, Deisenhofer worked, among other things, on the structure of human C3a, citrate synthase and an alpha-1 proteinase inhibitor .
Research at the Photosynthesis Reaction Center and Nobel Prize
In 1982 Hartmut Michel, who had come to Martinsried with Dieter Oesterhelt , made him aware of the successes in crystallizing the photosynthesis reaction center of Rhodopseudomonas viridis . Deisenhofer joined the group and began to elucidate the structure of the three-dimensional structure of the reaction center. The group was complemented by Kunio Miki , a post-doctoral student from Osaka University , who stayed in Martinsried until 1983, and later by Otto Epp . The group was able to record its first successes as early as the end of 1983, within the next two years the complete structure was clarified and two years later, in 1987, the refinement of the structure to 2.3 Å resolution was completed. Together, the researchers published their results in December 1985 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America . Hartmut Michel and Deisenhofer received the Biological Physics Prize of the American Physical Society in 1986 and the Otto Bayer Prize in 1988 . Deisenhofer completed his habilitation in 1987 at the Technical University of Munich and in 1988 was appointed professor of biochemistry at the University of Texas in Dallas , USA , in order to set up his own working group at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute of the UT Southwestern Medical Center. In 1989 he also became Regental Professor and holder of the Virginia and Edward Linthicum Chair in Biomolecular Science at the University of Texas.
Scientific career and life after the Nobel Prize
After the Nobel Prize, Deisenhofer continued to investigate the structure of biomolecules, including structural problems related to the regulation of synthesis, uptake and distribution of cholesterol .
Shortly after his arrival in the USA, he met Kirsten Fischer Lindahl, professor of microbiology and biochemistry and also founder at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, whom he married in 1989. Deisenhofer has been an official citizen of the United States since 2001. Also in 2003, Deisenhofer was one of 22 Nobel Prize winners to sign the 3rd Humanist Manifesto Humanism and Its Aspirations of the American Humanist Association . In 2010, Deisenhofer and 255 signatories from the National Academy of Sciences signed an open letter in Science magazine entitled Climate Change and the Integrity of Science . The letter expressed the researchers' lack of understanding of how politicians deal with researchers, especially climate researchers, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the political debate on global warming .
research
Early work
The first scientific publication by Johann Deisenhofer gives the results of his diploma thesis on the detection of phonons using a newly developed method. Here 10 12 Hz phonons were captured and detected in a ruby crystal with a variable proportion of Cr 3+ ions.
In his dissertation, Deisenhofer worked on the structural analysis of a protein for the first time by refining the structure elucidation of the pancreatic trypsin inhibitor in cattle by optimizing the X-ray structure analysis and achieving a resolution of 1.9 and later 1.5 Angstroms (Å) together with Wolfgang Steigemann could.
Photosynthesis reaction center
The main focus of Deisenhofer's research is structural analyzes of three-dimensional molecules, especially proteins. During his research at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry, he succeeded in elucidating the structure and function of protein molecules through further development and application of X-ray structure analysis. Together with Robert Huber, he worked from 1982 to 1985 on the fundamentals of photosynthesis and the associated molecules.
The working group, to which Hartmut Michel also belonged, succeeded for the first time in elucidating the three-dimensional structure of two protein-pigment complexes involved in the photoreaction. On the one hand, it was a protein that captures and transmits light and, on the other hand, a reaction center that induces the light-driven transport of electrons through a biomembrane . With this, the researchers succeeded for the first time in gaining an insight into the functioning and the fine structure of a biological photocell and in using X-ray structure analysis to clarify the atomic structure of the complexes involved. Rhodopseudomonas viridis, one of the purple bacteria, served them as a model organism . This also enabled the first complete X-ray structure analysis of a membrane-bound and complex protein. In contrast to proteins away from the membrane, these are not water-soluble and accordingly difficult to isolate and crystallize .
Further crystallizations and structure elucidations
Deisenhofer worked on numerous other molecules both before his work on the elucidation of the three-dimensional structure of the photosynthetic reaction center and afterwards. These were biomolecules of human origin as well as other organisms such as the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster or the thale cress ( Arabidopsis thaliana ).
Cholesterol intake
One focus of research in recent years has been the uptake of cholesterol and the structure of the associated molecules. The working group concentrated above all on the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) necessary for transporting cholesterol , the membrane-bound proteins NPC1 and NPC1L1 and that free protein NPC2 and PCSK9 , the proprotein convertase subtilisin / kexin type 9.
Among other things, the working group is working on the elucidation of the structure of the proteins NPC1 and NPC1L1, which enable the absorption of cholesterol in the small intestine through the cell membrane and act as a docking point for the drug ezetimibe to inhibit the absorption of cholesterol in the small intestine. The proteins take over the cholesterol from NPC2, to which it was passed from the LDL protein. The working group was able to resolve the structure of the N-terminal domains responsible for binding of NPC1 and NPC1L1 and the binding and the complex formed with cholesterol and 25-hydroxycholesterol. They later demonstrated the selectivity of NPC1L1 for cholesterol based on the structure of the sterol binding site in the form of a closed pocket.
Honors
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1988 (with Robert Huber and Hartmut Michel )
- Honorary citizen of Zusamaltheim
- Honorary Citizen of Dallas
- Member of the Academia Europaea (1989)
- Large Federal Cross of Merit with Star (April 17, 1990)
- Member of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (1997)
- Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (2003)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Information from the Nobel Foundation on the award ceremony in 1988 to Johann Deisenhofer (English)
- ↑ a b c d e f Johann Deisenhofer - Biographical on the pages of the Nobel Foundation.
- ↑ a b K. F. Renk, J. Deisenhofer: Imprisonment of Resonant Phonons Observed with a New Technique for the Detection of 10 12 -Hz Phonons. Physical Review Letters 26, 1971; Pp. 764-766.
- ↑ a b J. Deisenhofer, W. Steigemann: Crystallographic refinement of the structure of bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor at l.5 Å resolution. Acta Crystallographica Section B - Structural Crystallography and Crystal Chemistry 31 (1) January 1975; Pp. 238-250, doi : 10.1107 / S0567740875002415
- ↑ Life data, publications and academic family tree of Johann Deisenhofer at academictree.org, accessed on January 29, 2018.
- ^ J. Deisenhofer: Crystallographic refinement and atomic models of a human Fc fragment and its complex with fragment B of protein A from Staphylococcus aureus at 2.9- and 2.8-ANG. resolution. Biochemistry 20 (9), 1981; Pp. 2361-2370, doi : 10.1021 / bi00512a001
- Jump up ↑ J. Deisenhofer, O. Epp, K. Miki, R. Huber , H. Michel : Structure of the protein subunits in the photosynthetic reaction center of Rhodopseudomonas viridis at 3 Å resolution. Nature, 318 (6047), 1985; Pp. 618-624, doi : 10.1038 / 318618a0
- ^ EW Knapp, SF Fischer, W. Zinth, M. Sander, W. Kaiser, J. Deisenhofer, H. Michel: Analysis of optical spectra from single crystals of Rhodopseudomonas viridis reaction centers. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America . Volume 82, Number 24, December 1985, ISSN 0027-8424 , pp. 8463-8467, PMID 16593636 , PMC 390936 (free full text).
- ^ A b c German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina - Newly elected members 2003 , Leopoldina 2004; P. 17 (PDF; 1.8 MB)
- ^ Homepage of the Deisenhofer Lab ; Retrieved October 21, 2013.
- ↑ Humanist Manifesto III: Humanism and Its Aspirations of the American Humanist Association . Johann Deisenhofer is a prominent signatory ( memento of the original from October 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. listed.
- ^ PH Gleick et al .: Climate Change and the Integrity of Science. Science 328 (5979), May 7, 2010; Pp. 689-690, doi : 10.1126 / science.328.5979.689
- ↑ James P. Wolfe: Imaging Phonons . Cambridge University Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0-521-02208-8 , pp. 381 ( Cambridge Books Online ).
- ^ R. Huber R, D. Kukla, W. Bode, P. Schwager, K. Bartels, J. Deisenhofer, W. Steigemann: Structure of the complex formed by bovine trypsin and bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor. II. Crystallographic refinement at 1.9 A resolution. Journal of Molecular Biology 89 (1), 1974; Pp. 73-101.
- ↑ a b Deisenhofer, Johann. In: Bernhard Kupfer: Lexicon of Nobel Prize Winners. Patmos-Verlag, Düsseldorf 2001; ISBN 3-491-72451-1 , p. 133.
- ↑ a b Hyock Joo Kwon, Lina Abi-Mosleh, Michael L. Wang, Johann Deisenhofer, Joseph L. Goldstein, Michael S. Brown, Rodney E. Infante: Structure of N-terminal domain of NPC1 Reveals Distinct subdomains for Binding and Transfer of cholesterol. In: Cell. 137, No. 7, 2009, pp. 1213-1224, doi : 10.1016 / j.cell.2009.03.049 , PMID 19563754 .
- ↑ Hyock Joo Kwon, Maya Palnitkar, Johann Deisenhofer: The structure of the NPC1L1 N-terminal domain in a closed conformation. PLoS One 6 (4) April 15, 2011; e18722, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0018722
- ↑ Directory of members: Johann Deisenhofer. Academia Europaea, accessed on January 16, 2018 .
- ↑ Information from the Office of the Federal President.
- ^ Member Directory: Johann Deisenhofer. National Academy of Sciences, accessed January 16, 2018 .
literature
- Deisenhofer, Johann , in: Bernhard Kupfer: Lexicon of Nobel Prize Winners. Patmos-Verlag, Düsseldorf 2001; ISBN 3-491-72451-1 , p. 133.
Web links
- Information from the Nobel Foundation on the award ceremony in 1988 to Johann Deisenhofer (English)
- Literature by and about Johann Deisenhofer in the catalog of the German National Library
- Page of the HHMI about Deisenhofer
- Augsburger Allgemeine, February 25, 2016, article about Deisenhofer with picture
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Deisenhofer, Johann |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German biophysicist, Nobel Prize Winner for Chemistry (1988) |
DATE OF BIRTH | September 30, 1943 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Zusamaltheim , district of Dillingen on the Danube |