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Research in keywords: protein-membrane interactions, nanoscale membrane biophysics, membrane-curvature, fluorescence microscopy, single molecule enzymology, biologically inspired nanoscale sensors and fluidics.

Stamou Group - Research Overview

Our main research interest is the spatio-temporal organization of biological systems on the nanoscale and its impact on normal and aberrant biological functions.

The dynamic but carefully orchestrated organization of small groups of biomolecules (e.g. membrane nano-domains, scaffolding signaling complexes, protein coats) on the nanoscale is essential for many critical cellular processes, however it has proven hard to investigate experimentally and is therefore poorly understood. In this context we are particularly interested in membrane structure and protein-membrane interactions and therefore study a variety of different biological systems with the objective to identify unifying biophysical mechanisms that control on the nanometer scale the structure and function of proteins and membranes. Such mechanisms lead to the emergence of new rules of regulation of biochemical reactions and signal transduction networks that transcend classical bi-molecular (e.g. receptor-ligand) interactions.

The problems we are trying to solve are situated at the interface of biology, physics and nanotechnology and to address them experimentally we have assembled a highly inter-disciplinary group that includes molecular biologists, biochemists, physicists, nanotechnologists and material scientists. Our core expertise is advanced biofunctional surfaces that we use to isolate in a controlled environment from single molecules up to reconstituted signaling complexes, and quantitative optical microscopies that we use in combination with a number of other surface sensitive techniques to characterize our samples. Many of our projects are carried out in close collaboration with groups that specialize in protein purification and reconstitution, structural characterization, molecular dynamics simulations or theory.

One of our major objectives for the coming decade will be to identify and characterize in a quantitative manner the multiple instances during which the shape of cellular membranes dictates the outcome of biological processes.

A part of our group is harnessing our expertise on self-assembly and quantitative microscopy in order to develop prototypic biosensing nanoscale platforms and zeptolitre fluidic devices for applications in screening and diagnostics.

Selected Recent Publications:

7. Biophysical Journal, 2010. 100: p. 957
Single Vesicle Assaying of SNARE-Synaptotagmin Driven Fusion Reveals Fast and Slow Modes of Both Docking and Fusion and Intra-sample Heterogeneity. Sune M. Christensen, Michael W. Mortensen and Dimitrios G. Stamou.

6. FEBS Letters, 2010. 584: p. 1848, Invited Review
BAR Domains, Amphipathic Helices and Membrane-Anchored Proteins use the same mechanism to sense membrane curvature. K.L Madsen, V.K. Bhatia, U. Gether and D. Stamou.

5. Nature Chemical Biology, 2009. 5 (11): p. 835
Highlighted in a News and Views Article in Nature Chemical Biology. 2009. 5 (11): p. 783.
How Curved Membranes Recognize Amphipathic Helices and Protein Anchoring Motifs. N. S. Hatzakis, V. K. Bhatia, J. Larsen, K. L. Madsen, P. Y. Bolinger, A. H. Kunding, J. Castillo, U. Gether, P. Hedegård and D. Stamou.

4. EMBO Journal, 2009, 28 (21), p. 3303
Amphipathic motifs in BAR domains are essential for membrane curvature sensing. V. K. Bhatia, K. L. Madsen, P. Y. Bolinger, P. Hedegård, U. Gether, D. Stamou.

3. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2009. 106 (30): p. 12341
Quantification of nano-scale intermembrane contact areas using fluorescence resonance energy transfer. P. M. Bendix, M. S. Pedersen and D. Stamou.

2. Methods in Enzymology Liposomes. Book Series Methods in Enzymology, Published in 2009, Invited contribution, 465, p. 143
Constructing size distributions of liposomes from single-object fluorescence measurements. C. Lohr, A.H. Kunding, V. K. Bhatia and D. Stamou.

1. Soft Matter, Cover Page Article. 2007. 3 (7): p. 828
Surface-based lipid vesicle reactor systems: fabrication and applications.
S. M. Christensen and D. Stamou. Invited review.

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