Structural Glycobiology and Neurobiology

Heads Yves BOURNE, Pascale MARCHOT

Latest Publications

Natural genomic amplification of cholinesterase genes in animals. (2017) Chatonnet A, Lenfant N, Marchot P, Selkirk ME. J Neurochem in press PMID:28382676
The three-finger toxin fold: a multifunctional structural scaffold able to modulate cholinergic functions. (2017) Kessler P, Marchot P, Silva M, Servent D. J Neurochem in press PMID:28326549
Cyclic imine toxins from dinoflagellates: a growing family of potent antagonists of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. (2017) Molgo J, Marchot P, Araoz R, Benoit E, Iorga BI, Zakarian A, Taylor P, Bourne Y, Servent D. J Neurochem in press PMID:28326551
NMR assignments of the GacS histidine-kinase periplasmic detection domain from Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1. (2017) Ali-Ahmad A, Bornet O, Fadel F, Bourne Y, Vincent F, Bordi C, Guerlesquin F, Sebban-Kreuzer C. Biomol NMR Assign 11 25-28 PMID:27714507
Structural insights into a family 39 glycoside hydrolase from the gut symbiont Bacteroides cellulosilyticus WH2 (2017) Ali-Ahmad A, Garron ML, Zamboni V, Lenfant N, Nurizzo D, Henrissat B, Berrin JG, Bourne Y, Vincent F. J Struct Biol 197 227-235 PMID:27890857
The Hybrid Histidine Kinase LadS Forms a Multicomponent Signal Transduction System with the GacS/GacA Two-Component System in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. (2016) Chambonnier G, Roux L, Redelberger D, Fadel F, Filloux A, Sivaneson M, de Bentzmann S, Bordi C. PLoS Genet 12 e1006032 PMID:27176226

...All publications

Our research projects address the molecular architectures and functional mechanisms of carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes), sensor domains and lectins, and of enzymes, receptors and cell adhesion molecules with a neurobiological interest.

The CAZymes govern the hydrolysis, conversion or recognition of sugar moieties from glycoconjuguates widely found in animals, fungi, plants and bacteria. These conjugates are involved in key biological processes such as development, fertilization, quality control of protein folding, host-pathogen recognition, immune response, and they can be linked to diseases such as neurodegenerative metabolic diseases. In collaboration with the “Glycogenomics” team we pay particular attention to those glycoside hydrolases that are of interest for biomedical and biotechnological applications.

We also address the function, recognition properties and structure of receptors, enzymes and adhesion molecules involved in central and peripheral neurotransmission, with particular interest for their structure-function relationships, specificity of partner and ligand recognition, conformational dynamics and functional regulation. In particular we have accumulated expertise in the study of the enzyme acetylcholinesterase and of the extracellular ligand-binding domain of the nicotinic receptor to acetylcholine whose malfunctioning has been correlated with neurodegenerative diseases, and to cell adhesion molecules structurally related to the cholinesterases or to other families of proteins and associated with developmental neuronal deficiencies.

Our methodological approaches involve recombinant protein expression in prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems and complementary biochemical, biophysical, functional and structural (X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy) characterization means.