Objective
The dynamics of biomembrane lipid organisation and its physiological role is a rapidly developing interdisciplinary field. Membrane dynamics is largely controlled by lipid transporters also known as flippases, which play a pivotal role in cell homeostasis. Putative flippases belong to various subfamilies of the P-type ATPases and ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters. These proteins are involved in regulating lipid asymmetry, cellular signalling, in the budding of transport vesicles and protein synthesis. Dysfunction of flippases causes severe diseases like cholestasis, atherosclerosis, visual impairment, what emphasises their crucial physiological function. Although these proteins have been connected with the translocation of various classes of membrane lipids across cellular membranes, biochemical and genetic proof of their function and the key features of their activity remain to be elucidated. The network teaming 12 groups is aimed at undertaking an interdisciplinary effort to reveal the molecular identity and cellular localisation of flippases, their three-dimensional structure, substrate specificity, the molecular mechanism, energetics and regulation of their functioning, as well as unraveling the consequences of their action for cell and body physiology. Biophysical approaches will be used to address lipid transport energetics and its role in membrane budding, fission and fusion. The teams have complementary expertise at the highest standard in all required techniques of molecular and cell biology, biochemistry, proteomics, structural biology including X-ray crystal analysis and cryoelectron microscopy, and theoretical and experimental biophysics. In addition to providing novel applicative insights into flippase-related diseases, this project will identify potential targets for designed drug development in pharmaceutics, and will offer new biotechnological tools to use cellular model systems in production of e.g. lipophilic drugs and probiotic food.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculesproteinsproteomics
- natural sciencesbiological sciencescell biology
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculeslipids
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiophysics
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmolecular biologystructural biology
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Call for proposal
FP6-2002-MOBILITY-1
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Funding Scheme
RTN - Marie Curie actions-Research Training NetworksCoordinator
BERLIN
Germany