Göttingen Graduate Center for Neurosciences, Biophysics, and Molecular Biosciences

Pöggeler, Stefanie, Prof. Dr.

Professor of Genetics of Eukaryotic Microorganisms


  • 1993 Dr. rer. nat., Ruhr-Universität Bochum
  • 1993-1995 Research associate
  • 1995-2001 Postdoctoral research fellow and group leader
  • 1997 Visiting Scientist, Institut de Génétique et Microbiologie, Laboratory of Dr. D. Zickler, Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France
  • 2000 Habilitation (Botany), Ruhr-Universität Bochum
  • 2001-2003 Associate Professor of Botany (stand-in), University of Münster
  • 2003-2006 University lecturer (Hochschuldozentin) and group leader, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
  • since 2006 Associate Professor of Genetics of Eukaryotic Microorganisms, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen



Major Research Interests

Fruiting-body development in filamentous ascomycetes
Fruiting-body development in filamentous ascomycetes is a complex cellular differentiation process that requires special environmental conditions and is controlled by many developmentally regulated genes. We are interested in the genes regulating this development process. We use the homothallic (self-fertile) ascomycete Sordaria macrospora as a model organism. Numerous mutants which are blocked at various stages of fruiting-body development have been generated and molecular genetic procedures have been applied to isolate genes involved in fruiting-body development. In addition to mutants generated by chemical mutagenesis, several mutants affecting fruiting-body development were produced by knock-out of mating-type genes, pheromone and receptor genes, as well as genes involved in autophagy and bicarbonate metabolism.

Homepage Department/Research Group

http://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/433268.html


Fungal inteins
An intein is a self-catalytic protein-intervening sequence that catalyses its precise excision from a host protein and the ligation of its flanking sequences, termed N- and C-exteins, to produce the mature spliced product. Protein splicing is a posttranslational event that releases an internal intein sequence from a protein precursor. Projects in the lab aim to analyse the splicing activity of inteins detected in the prp8 gene of fungi. Because of their compactness and high splicing activity inside foreign proteins, fungal PRP8 inteins may be used for the development of new intein-mediated protein-engineering applications such as protein purification, addition of fluorescent biosensors and expression of cytotoxic proteins.


Selected Recent Publications


  • Voigt O, Pöggeler S (2013) Autophagy genes Smatg8 and Smatg4 are required for fruiting-body development, vegetative growth and ascospore germination in the filamentous ascomycete Sordaria macrospora. Autophagy 9: 33-49.
  • Böhm J, Hoff B, O’Gorman CM, Wolfers S, Klix V, Binger D, Zadra I, Kürnsteiner H, Pöggeler S Dyer P, Kück U (2013) Sexual recombination and mating type-mediated strain development in the penicillin producing fungus Penicillium chrysogenum. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 110: 1476-1481
  • Lehneck R, Neumann P, Vullo D, Elleuche S, Supuran CT, Ficner R, Pöggeler S (2014) Crystal structures of two tetrameric β-carbonic anhydrases from the filamentous ascomycete Sordaria macrospora. FEBS Journal 281: 1759-1772
  • Lehneck R, Elleuche S, Pöggeler S (2014) The filamentous ascomycete Sordaria macrospora can survive in ambient air without carbonic anhydrases. Mol Microbiol 92: 931-944
  • Frey S, Lahmann Y, Hartmann T, Seiler S, Pöggeler S (2015) Deletion of Smgpi1 encoding a GPI-anchored protein suppresses sterility of the STRIPAK mutant ΔSmmob3 in the filamentous ascomycete Sordaria macrospora. Mol Microbiol 97: 676-697
  • Peter M, Kohler A, Ohm RA, Kuo A, Krützmann J, Morin E, Arend M, Barry KW, Binder M, Choi C, Clum A, Copeland A, Grisel N, Haridas S, Kipfer T, LaButti K, Lindquist E, Lipzen A, Maire R, Meier B, Mihaltcheva S, Molinier V, Murat C, Pöggeler S, Quandt CA, Sperisen C, AnTritt A, Tisserant E, Crous PW, Henrissat B, Nehls U, Egli S, Spatafora JW14, Grigoriev IV, Martin FM (2016) Ectomycorrhizal ecology is imprinted in the genome of the dominant symbiotic fungus Cenococcum geophilum. Nat Commun 7:12662
  • Reschka EJ, Nordzieke S, Valerius O, Braus GH, Pöggeler S (2018) A novel STRIPAK complex component mediates hyphal fusion and fruiting-body development in filamentous fungi. Mol Microbiol 110: 513-532
  • Werner A, Herzog B, Valerius O, Braus GH, Pöggeler S (2019) NBR1 is involved in selective pexophagy in filamentous ascomycetes and can be functionally replaced by a tagged version of its human homolog. Autophagy 15: 78-97