Prof. Dr. Christian Behrends

Keywords: Autophagy, Ubiquitin & Ubiquitin-like Proteins, Lysosomes, Rare Neurological Diseases

Research methods: Proximity & interaction proteomics Organelle proteomics Ubiquitin proteomics Biochemistry Cell Biology

Brief research description: We utilize proteomics, cell biology and biochemistry to study the autophagy and ubiquitin systems as well as pathomechanisms of rare neurological disorders. Projects in my laboratory are centered around the mammalian autophagy pathway. In particular, we seek to systematically elucidate protein networks and dissect functions involved in regulating the autophagic quality and quantity control of organelles and proteins and to identify mechanisms by which diverse disease states usurpate the cell’s homeostatic system. To this end, we employ highly complementary strategies including biochemical and cell biological methods as well as quantitative proteomics and high-content imaging techniques. By coupling systematic, unbiased biological approaches alongside with functional and mechanistic analyses we strive to substantially enhance the degree of specific functional information that can be gained on complex systems and therefore provide an opportunity to make connections between components that might be difficult to make otherwise.

Selected publications:

Mukhopadyay U, Levantovsky S, Gharbi S, Stein F, Behrends C*, Bhogaraju S*. A ubiquitin-specific, proximity-based labeling approach for the identification of ubiquitin ligase substrates. Science Advances In Press

Nalbach K, Schifferer M, Bhattacharya D, Ho-Xuan H, Tseng WC, Williams LA, Stolz A, Lichtenthaler SF, Elazar Z, Behrends C. Spatial proteomics reveals secretory pathway disturbances caused by neuropathy-associated TECPR2. Nature Communications 2023 Feb 16;14(1):870. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-36553-6. PMID: 36797266

Zhou D, Borsa M, Puleston D, Zellner S, Capera J, Sanderson S, Schifferer M, Hester S, Ge X, Fischer R, Jostins L, Behrends C*, Alsaleh G*, Simon AK*. Mapping autophagosome contents identifies interleukin-7 receptor-α as a key cargo modulating CD4+ T cell proliferation. Nature Communications 2022 Sep 2; 13(1):5174. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-32718-x. PMID: 36055998

Kravić B, Bionda T, Siebert A, Gahlot P, Levantovsky S, Behrends C*, Hemmo Meyer*. Ubiquitin profiling of lysophagy identifies actin-stabilizer CNN2 as a target of VCP/p97 and uncovers link to HSPB1 Molecular Cell 2022 Jul 21; 82(14):2633-2649.e7. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2022.06.012. PMID: 35793674

Zellner S, Schifferer M, Behrends C. Systematically defining selective autophagy receptor-specific cargo using autophagosome content profiling. Molecular Cell 2021 Jan 28; S1097-2765(21)00009-5. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2021.01.009. PMID: 3354506