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18 European Projects Found

Searched on 125080 European Projects

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A hallmark of profound understanding of the organization of a living cell is the ability to reconstitute essential cellular functionalities from minimal components. To achieve this breakthrough a concerted effort of cell biology, biochemistry and biophysics is required. Our project brings together this expertise to reconstitute the cell’s ability to control the organization of cytoskeletal network ...
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Building the Neuronal Microtubule Cytoskeleton (NeuroMT)

Start date: Nov 1, 2014, End date: Oct 31, 2019,

Microtubules (MTs) are one of the major cytoskeletal components of the cell, essential for many fundamental cellular and developmental processes, such as cell division, motility and polarity. In large and highly polarized cells like neurons, MTs have been regarded as essential structures for stable neuronal morphology and serve as tracks for long-distance transport; however, fundamental new insigh ...
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Neurons are the building blocks of the brain. The ability of neurons to receive, process and transmit information depends on their polarized organization into axons and dendrites. To build such a highly polarized cell, cellular components synthesized in the cell body are differentially transported to either axons or dendrites. Polarized transport is driven by three families of cytoskeletal motor p ...
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Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease, manifested by a progressive loss of synaptic connectivity, neuronal death and memory impairment. AD affects 1 out of 10 Europeans aged over 65. There are no effective therapies for AD, in part because there is no proven molecular explanation of the steps leading from initial neuronal changes to synaptic defects and cognitive consequenc ...
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In nature, plants live in complex environments in which they are attacked by a multitude of pathogens and pests. In agriculture this leads to tremendous annual crop losses, representing a value of over 450 billion worldwide. Beneficial associations between plants and other organisms are abundant in nature as well, improving plant growth or aiding plants to overcome biotic or abiotic stress. In the ...
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Synaptic connections within the adult brain are not fixed and stable but remarkably flexible. This reorganisation of synaptic connectivity is a basic principle of neuronal plasticity and believed to represent the cellular basis for learning and memory function. Dendritic spines form the dynamic postsynaptic component of most excitatory synapses in the brain. Recent studies from the host laboratory ...
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Brain disorders impose an increasing economical and social burden in the member states of the European Union (EU). For most neurodegenerative diseases and many neuropsychiatric disorders no efficient treatment is available and no cure exists. In the next coming years the number of particularly elderly people suffering from brain disorders will tremendously increase. Predictions from the turn of th ...
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Biotic and abiotic stresses are major components of natural selection in the wild. In nature, plants have to cope with a wide range of biotic and abiotic stress conditions. Recent genomics research revealed that the plant’s capacity to respond to this enormous diversity of stresses is highly flexible and finely balanced. As plants have co-evolved with an enormous variety of microbial pathogens and ...
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Molecular mechanisms of synapto-dendritic cargo trafficking (NEUROTRAF)

Start date: Apr 1, 2013, End date: Mar 31, 2015,

"Activity-dependent modulation of synapses is the core mechanism of synaptic plasticity and underlies learning and memory processes in the brain. Understanding dynamic changes at synapses requires a deeper insight in the molecular machinery involved in the transport and trafficking of postsynaptic proteins. Recent studies suggest that the cytoskeleton (microtubule and actin) and molecular motors ( ...
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Neurons are highly polarized cells, possessing two distinct types of processes, dendrites and a single axon. In cultured mammalian neurons, axons have uniform polarity microtubules (MTs) with plus ends distal to the cell body, while dendrites have mixed polarity with about half plus-end-out and half minus-end-out MTs. Several studies suggest that neurons have a tremendous capacity for axon regener ...
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Metabolic Reprogramming by Induction of Transcription (MERIT)

Start date: Jan 1, 2011, End date: Dec 31, 2014,

Plants continually monitor the environment to modify physiology and development at the molecular level to ensure maximal fitness. Central in the signaling network is the SnRK1 kinases (homologous to AMPK and SNF1 in mammals and yeast respectively). These kinases are vital to the energy balance of the organism and regulate primary metabolism by controlling transcription factors, which control the e ...
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"The mammary gland functional unit develops as a result of a complex morphogenetic process organizing polarized epithelial cells into a branched network of ducts terminating in acini. Most of human breast cancers originate from transformation of epithelial cells and induce breakdown of this structure. Studies in cells grown in two-dimensional (2D) cultures have shown that microtubules target and r ...
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Systems Biology to understand Plant Architecture (SysArc)

Start date: Jan 1, 2009, End date: Dec 31, 2013,

Extensive feedback between gene expression state and the cellular environment yields tangled hierarchies . This lack of strictly hierarchical control mechanisms poses a challenge to developmental biologists: the outcome of interaction networks with extensive feedbacks is not intuitive and must be analyzed with analytical tools. Here, I propose a combination of experimental and theoretical approac ...
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"Throughout lifetime a proper balance between excitation and inhibition is crucial for a healthy brain. How exactly this balance between excitation and inhibition is regulated in the brain is not well understood. One intriguing possibility is that glutamatergic and GABAergic synaptic plasticity are not regulated separately, but somehow interact to maintain this balance. In the work proposed here w ...
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"Plant architecture is largely determined by branching patterns in the shoot and root systems. Shoots of seed plants, such as the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, branch via lateral bud outgrowth, where branches are patterned along the stem at the base of a leaf. Roots branch laterally from an internal cell layer surrounded by differentiated tissues, at a distance from the root tip. Despite the d ...
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"The overall aim of the proposal is to support the scientific career development of an experienced researcher, by completing an interdisciplinary research project on microtubule dynamics in axon regeneration, and enabling the fellow to acquire new knowledge and academic skills in order to attain a position of maturity and independence. The scientific objectives of the research are to analyse how t ...
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In recent years chromatin has emerged as an extremely dynamic platform for establishing and maintaining gene expression programs. Chemical alterations of DNA and histone proteins, nucleosome positioning and histone variant usage collectively allow the formation of complex combinatorial codes of chromatin modifications that determine local DNA accessibility to transcription and transcript processin ...
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Microtubule plus end tracking proteins are a group of factors that accumulate specifically at the ends of growing microtubules where they control microtubule dynamics and the interactions with different structures, such as mitotic kinetochores, actin cytoskeleton and the cell cortex. The core components of the microtubule plus end tracking machinery are End Binding (EB) proteins, such as EB1, whic ...
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