Publications

The Complex Portal (www.ebi.ac.uk/complexportal) is a manually curated, encyclopaedic database of macromolecular complexes with known function from a range of model organisms. It summarizes complex composition, topology and function along with links to a large range of domain-specific resources (i.e. wwPDB, EMDB and Reactome). Since the last update in 2019, we have produced a first draft complexome for Escherichia coli, maintained and updated that of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, added over 40 coronavirus complexes and increased the human complexome to over 1100 complexes that include approximately 200 complexes that act as targets for viral proteins or are part of the immune system.

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) is essential for placental development, whose SNPs have shown increased susceptibility to pregnancy-related diseases, such as preeclampsia. Our aim was to investigate the association between preeclampsia and three PPARγ SNPs (Pro12Ala, C1431T, and C681G), which together with nine clinical factors were used to build a pragmatic model for preeclampsia prediction...

Antigen T cell receptors (TCR) recognize antigenic peptides displayed by the major histocompatibility complex (pMHC) and play a critical role in T cell activation. The levels of TCR complexes at the cell surface, where signaling is initiated, depend on the balance between TCR synthesis, recycling and degradation. Cell surface TCR interaction with pMHC leads to receptor clustering and formation of a tight T cell-APC contact, the immune synapse, from which the activated TCR is internalized...

In addition to serum immunoglobulins, memory B cell (MBC) generation against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is another layer of immune protection, but the quality of MBC responses in naive and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-recovered individuals after vaccination remains ill defined. We studied longitudinal cohorts of naive and disease-recovered individuals for up to 2 months after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination. We assessed the quality of the memory response by analysis of antibody repertoires, affinity, and neutralization against variants of concern (VOCs) using unbiased cultures of 2,452 MBCs...

Tissue macrophages are immune cells whose phenotypes and functions are dictated by origin and niches. However, tissues are complex environments, and macrophage heterogeneity within the same organ has been overlooked so far. Here, we used high-dimensional approaches to characterize macrophage populations in the murine liver. We identified two distinct populations among embryonically derived Kupffer cells (KCs) sharing a core signature while differentially expressing numerous genes and proteins: a major CD206loESAM- population (KC1) and a minor CD206hiESAM+ population (KC2)...

Therapies targeting the tyrosine kinase receptor HER2 have significantly improved survival of HER2+ cancer patients. However, both de novo and acquired resistance remain a challenge, particularly in the brain metastatic setting. Here we report that, unlike other HER tyrosine kinase receptors, HER2 possesses a binding motif in its cytosolic juxtamembrane region that allows interaction with members of the ezrin/radixin/moesin (ERM) family. Under physiological conditions, this interaction controls the localization of HER2 in ERM-enriched domains and stabilizes HER2 in a catalytically repressed state...