Julia Kehr Group

Julia Kehr

Is one of the PLAMORF group leaders, located at the University of Hamburg (Germany). Julia is department head for molecular plant genetics at the Institute of Plant Science and Microbiology. Already during for her PhD thesis at Potsdam University she was working on plant single cell analysis. After that Julia was a group leader at the MPI-MP in Golm and professor and head of proteomics facility at CBGP Madrid, Spain. Her main expertise is in long-distance signaling, RNA transport and RNA binding proteins, and plant stress responses.

Find out more about her and her group on the University webiste, ResearchGate, LinkedIn, Google Scholar.

PLAMORF publications:

Long-Distance Transported RNAs: From Identity to Function. Annual Review of Plant Biology 2022, doi: 10.1146/annurev-arplant-070121-033601

Other relevant publications:

Enzyme activity and structural features of three single-domain phloem cyclophilins from Brassica napus. Scientific Reports 2019, doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-45856-y
Functional analysis of Brassica napus phloem protein and ribonucleoprotein complexes. New Phytologist 2017, doi: 10.1111/nph.14405

Julia Kehr

Kim Luehmann

Is a PhD student in Julia Kehrs group at the University of Hamburg since May 2019. Before joining PLAMORF Kim studied plant biotechnology at the University of Hannover.

In PLAMORF she is working on the functional and structural characterization of phloem mobile RNA-binding proteins to obtain insights on the involvement of RNA-protein interactions in the long-distance transport of RNAs. Therefore, studying the interactions of these proteins, especially GRP7, with RNAs in vitro is the biggest slice of the cake.

Visit her profile:

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Steffen Ostendorp

Is a Post-doc in Julia Kehr’s group at the University of Hamburg. He obtained his Master in molecular life sciences from the University of Luebeck working on flaviviral proteases. Steffen hen joined the lab of Julia Kehr to work on the functional and structural characterisation of three phloem mobile proteins for his PhD thesis. He gained also international experience as a lab intern at the Karolinska Institute (Division of Molecular Structural Biology) and DUKE-NUS in Singapore. His expertise is in protein purification, RNA binding assays, protein assays, MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, small angle X-Ray scattering, protein crystallization, microscale thermophoresis and RNA synthesis.

In PLAMORF Steffen is mainly occupied with the identification and characterization of phloem mobile RNA binding proteins, the quantification of RNA binding and elucidation of structural features upon RNA binding. A new emerging field he is focusing on is biocondensate formation in plants and how they are involved in RNA localization and signaling.

Publications:

2022: Intrinsically disordered plant protein PARCL colocalizes with RNA in phase-separated condensates whose formation can be regulated by mutating the PLD; JBC, doi: 10.1016/j.jbc.2022.102631

2018: Phloem Sap Sampling from Brassica napus for 3D-PAGE of Protein and Ribonucleoprotein Complexes; J Vis Exp, doi: 10.3791/57097

2017: Functional analysis of Brassica napus phloem protein and ribonucleoprotein complexes; New Phytol., doi: 10.1111/nph.14405

Visit his profile on: ResearchGate; LinkedIn; ORCID; Twitter

Chaithanya Lakshmi

joined Julia Kehr’s group as a PhD student in October 2022, after obtaining a Master’s degree in Molecular Plant Science in University Hamburg. During her Master’s, she worked on functional analyses of a novel peroxisomal protein in Arabidopsis thaliana implicated in peroxisome biogenesis.
In the PLAMORF project, she is interested in the identification of phloem-mobile small RNAs acting as potential signaling molecules and elucidating their protein binding characteristics.

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Linda

Linda Wansing

is a PhD student in Julia Kehr’s group. Already during her master thesis at the University of Münster Linda was working on phloem proteins, more specifically phloem structure-proteins and their possible involvement in sieve element occlusion in Brassica napus. She brings her expertise in plant physiology and imaging, especially fluorescent microscopy into PLAMORF where she is keen to put a focus on protein biochemistry. Linda will study RNA-binding proteins from the phloem, their RNA-binding capacity and condensate formation and will conduct in planta studies of condensates and RNA-protein/ protein-protein interaction.

Visit her profile on Linkedin and ResearchGate!

Previous group / PLAMORF members

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Rita Fernandes

Started her PhD in Julia Kehr’s group at the University of Hamburg in May 2019. She holds both a bachelor’s and master’s in Biochemistry, from University of Algarve and NOVA University of Lisbon respectively. In her master thesis she worked in supramolecular chemistry, photochemistry and organic synthesis with the aim of developing a photocontrolled drug release system.

In PLAMORF she is working as an associated PhD student in transcriptome analysis from grafted brassicas to better understand the specificity of transcriptomic responses as well the evolutionary advantage of hybridization. She also has interest in topics like ribosome biogenesis and protein structural and functional analysis, more specifically towards RNA binding proteins (RBPs). She has expertise in techniques such spectroscopy (Fluorescence and NMR), Isothermal Titration Calorimetry (ITC), Small-Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) and Microscale Thermophoresis (MST)

Visit her profile on: LinkedIn; ResearchGate; ORCID

Francisca Méndez Pinochet

Joined Julia Kehr’s group as a PhD Student in May 2019 after obtaining her Master’s Degree in Agrobiology at Aarhus Universitet in Denmark. During her Masters, she worked with targeted mutagenesis with CRISPR/Cas9 in Barley at the Crop Genetics and Biotechnology Department. Previously she studied Agronomical Engineering at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (BSc).

In PLAMORF she works with Structural-Functional characterization of GRP8 and other RNA-Binding Proteins that are phloem-mobile as well as their RNA-interactions and long-distance signaling transport.

Visit her profile on: ResearchGate, LinkedIn

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