Targeting of Arabidopsis KNL2 to Centromeres Depends on the Conserved CENPC-k Motif in Its C Terminus

Author Profile

Michael Sandmann

Highlighted Paper: Targeting of A. thaliana KNL2 to centromeres depends on the conserved CENPC-k motif in its C-terminus. Plant Cell. Advance Publication January 6, 2017; doi:10.1105/tpc.16.00720.

Current Position: PhD student in the research group �Quantitative Genetics� of Prof. Dr. Jochen C. Reif (Department of Breeding Research) at the Leibniz Institute for of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK; Gatersleben, Germany). Supervisor: Dr. Inna Lermontova.

Education: Diploma in Biochemistry at the Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena (Germany) in 2013.

Non-scientific Interests: Cycling and other sports, cooking with friends and enjoying good food, reading political articles (not mass media) and certain manga (Japanese comics).

Close to the end of my study of Biochemistry at the University of Jena (Germany, Thuringia) I enrolled in a Biotechnology course to learn more about biotechnological methods. I applied to the lab of Prof. Dr. Ingo Schubert and since then Dr. Inna Lermontova became my supervisor. I learnt in her lab various techniques including the Gateway cloning technology for my course and I was introduced to her topic: the identification and characterization of kinetochore proteins. I generated expression clones and expressed the kinetochore protein KNL2 of Arabidopsis in bacteria, back in 2012 when the function of this plant protein was not characterized. During my diploma thesis period I contributed to the initial and functional characterization of KNL2. For instance, I verified the localization of KNL2 at centromeres and including these findings our first KNL2 paper was published. However, a deeper analysis of important domains of KNL2 was not part of the first publication. After the diploma I continued my work together with Inna to that analysis in the frame of my PhD student project. We discovered that KNL2 targets the centromere by the CENPC-k motif, a domain that was not described before. Furthermore, KNL2 contains an unspecific DNA binding capability which also the maize kinetochore protein CENPC shows. Those findings are recently published in our second KNL2 paper.