Malte Gersch

@maltegersch.bsky.social

Chemical Biologist & Research Groupleader at Max Planck & TU Dortmund. Interested in DUBs, proteases, ubiquitin, the outdoors and more. Views are my own. cgc.mpg.de/gersch

Check out our new publication, a collaboration with Giovanni Luchetti and Vishva Dixit @ Genentech. We show that the E.coli effector NleL inhibits intestinal epithelial cell extrusion after #inflammasome activation via degrading the kinases ROCK1 and 2!! www.nature.com/articles/s41... Explainer 1/8

Enteropathogenic bacteria evade ROCK-driven epithelial cell extrusion - Nature

The bacterial ubiquitin ligase NleL evades host defence mechanisms both by inhibiting pyroptosis and by preventing infected intestinal epithelial cells from being extruded into the lumen and expelled ...

nature.com

Allosteric activation of a ubiquitin ligase by an internal kinase domain! Congratulations to our team member Thornton Fokkens for this fascinating discovery in a neglected disease area with strong therapeutic need. Many thanks to all our great collaborators! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A Leishmania virulence factor harnesses an allosteric kinase switch to regulate its ubiquitin ligase activity

Stringent control of ubiquitylation is a central requirement of signaling specificity in eukaryotes. Here, we discover a domain module integrating pro…

sciencedirect.com

How can mitophagy be an effective quality control mechanism if mtDNA mutations reach high enough levels to cause disease? This question led us into a dark path, full of concepts of evolutionary genetics, germline stem cell biology and mito-nuclear compatibility. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Ubiquitin-mediated mitophagy regulates the inheritance of mitochondrial DNA mutations

Mitochondrial synthesis of adenosine triphosphate is essential for eukaryotic life but is dependent on the cooperation of two genomes: nuclear and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). mtDNA mutates ~15 times as...

science.org

Delighted to share our work on cellular ubiquitination of drug-like compounds by HUWE1 - a surprising journey! Kudos to all contributors & first authors, Barbara Orth and Pavel Pohl. Sincere thanks to @ireserra.bsky.social#NatCommun for expertly guiding the winding publishing path. rdcu.be/eDzPk

Selective ubiquitination of drug-like small molecules by the ubiquitin ligase HUWE1

Nature Communications - Ubiquitination is a versatile modification system in eukaryotic cells. Here, the authors unveil that the ubiquitin ligase HUWE1 can modify drug-like small-molecule...

rdcu.be

This one is a bit of a departure from the usual and definitely a work in progress! We found that by using ab initio reconstruction at very high res, in very small steps, we could crack some small structures that had eluded us - e.g. 39kDa iPKAc (EMPIAR-10252), below. Read on for details... 1/x

bioRxiv Biophysics@biorxiv-biophys.bsky.social · 11mo ago

High-resolution ab initio reconstruction enables cryo-EM structure determination of small particles https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.08.674935v1

Excited to share our latest: we engineered the reactivity of a bacterial E1-like enzyme for ATP-driven modification of C termini. Our tool mimics the logic of peptide bond formation in biology for precision modification of proteins in vitro. 🧪https://rdcu.be/ewN7C

Engineered reactivity of a bacterial E1-like enzyme enables ATP-driven modification of protein and peptide C termini

Nature Chemistry - In living systems, ATP provides an energetic driving force for protein synthesis and modification. Now, an engineered enzymatic tool has been developed for high-yield, ATP-driven...

rdcu.be

This week in Science, researchers report an artificial molecular motor that can twist a molecular thread to form a mechanically interlocked molecule. The approach creates opportunities to fabricate mechanically interlocked molecules with precise structural control. Learn more: scim.ag/40FboGP

This illustration shows consecutive stages during operation of a molecular catenating machine.