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Jürgen Knoblich

Picture of the Group Leader Jürgen Knoblich

Asymmetric cell division in Drosophila and mouse stem cells

Stem cells have the unique ability to divide asymmetrically and generate both self-renewing and differentiating daughter cells. In the Knoblich lab, we use Drosophila and mouse genetics to identify the molecular mechanisms that control asymmetric cell division and allow cells to create daughter cells of such dramatically different properties.
In Drosophila, asymmetric cell divisions are established via the segregation of cell fate determinants into only one of the two daughter cells and identifying the mechanism of this polarized segregation has been a key focus of the lab. Defects in asymmetric cell division can lead to the formation of transplantable tumors in flies and understanding the mechanism of stem cell derived tumor formation is a more recent goal. For this, we use in vivo transgenic RNAi to analyze stem cell self renewal on a genome-wide level and apply in-utero electroporation to study homologs of the identified genes in vertebrate neural stem cells.


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Jürgen Knoblich
Senior Scientist & Deputy Scientific Director
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Sonja Paulick
Assistant to Jürgen Knoblich
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Selected Publications

(2009)
 
Mummery-Widmer, JL., Yamazaki, M., Stoeger, T., Novatchkova, M., Bhalerao, S., Chen, D., Dietzl, G., Dickson, BJ., Knoblich, JA. (2009). Genome-wide analysis of Notch signalling in Drosophila by transgenic RNAi. Nature. 458(7241):987-92 (abstract)
 
Schwamborn, JC., Berezikov, E., Knoblich, JA. (2009). The TRIM-NHL protein TRIM32 activates microRNAs and prevents self-renewal in mouse neural progenitors. Cell. 136(5):913-25 (abstract)
 
(2008)
 
Knoblich, JA. (2008). Mechanisms of asymmetric stem cell division. Cell. 132(4):583-97 (abstract)
 
Neumüller, RA., Betschinger, J., Fischer, A., Bushati, N., Poernbacher, I., Mechtler, K., Cohen, SM., Knoblich, JA. (2008). Mei-P26 regulates microRNAs and cell growth in the Drosophila ovarian stem cell lineage. Nature. 454(7201):241-5 (abstract)
 
Wirtz-Peitz, F., Nishimura, T., Knoblich, JA. (2008). Linking cell cycle to asymmetric division: Aurora-A phosphorylates the Par complex to regulate Numb localization. Cell. 135(1):161-73 (abstract)