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Selected Publications

Zheng L, Du Y, Steinchen W, Girbig M, Abendroth F, Jalomo-Khayrova E, Bedrunka P, Bekeredjian-Ding I, Mais CN, Hochberg GKA, Freitag J, Bange G. Regulation of acetyl-CoA biosynthesis via an intertwined acetyl-CoA synthetase/acetyltransferase complex. Nature Communications 2025 16, 2557. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-57842-2.

Lisevich I, Colin R, Yang HY, Ni B, Sourjik V. Physics of swimming and its fitness cost determine strategies of bacterial investment in flagellar motility  Nature Communications 2025 16, 1731. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-56980-x.

Ries F, Gorlt J, Kaiser S, Scherer V, Seydel C, Nguyen S, Klingl A, Legen J, Schmitz-Linneweber C, Plaggenborg H, Ng JZY, Wiens D, Hochberg GKA, Räschle M, Möhlmann T, Scheuring D, Willmund F. A truncated variant of the ribosome-associated trigger factor specifically contributes to plant chloroplast ribosome biogenesis. Nature Communication 2025 16, 629. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-55813-1.

Oehlmann NN, Schmidt FV, Herzog M, Goldman AL, Rebelein JG. The iron nitrogenase reduces carbon dioxide to formate and methane under physiological conditions: A route to feedstock chemicals. Science Advances 2024 10, eado7729. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.ado7729.

Sendker FL, Schlotthauer T, Mais CN, Lo YK, Girbig M, Bohn S, Heimerl T, Schindler D, Weinstein A, Metzger BPH, Thornton JW, Pillai A, Bange G, Schuller JM, Hochberg GKA. Frequent transitions in self-assembly across the evolution of a central metabolic enzyme. Nature Communications 2024 15, 10515. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-54408-6.

Schmidt FV, Schulz L, Zarzycki J, Prinz S, Oehlmann NN, Erb TJ, Rebelein JG. Structural insights into the iron nitrogenase complex. Nature structural and molecular biology 2024 31, 150-158. doi: 10.1038/s41594-023-01124-2. 

Sendker FL, Lo YK, Heimerl T, Bohn S, Persson LJ, Mais CN, Sadowska W, Paczia N, Nußbaum E, Del Carmen Sánchez Olmos M, Forchhammer K, Schindler D, Erb TJ, Benesch JLP, Marklund EG, Bange G, Schuller JM, Hochberg GKA. Emergence of fractal geometries in the evolution of a metabolic enzyme. Nature 2024 628, 894–900. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07287-2.

Bozhüyük KAJ, Präve L, Kegler C, Schenk L, Kaiser S, Schelhas C, Shi YN, Kuttenlochner W, Schreiber M, Kandler J, Alanjary M, Mohiuddin TM, Groll M, Hochberg GKA, Bode HB. Evolution-inspired engineering of nonribosomal peptide synthetases. Science 2024 383, eadg4320.  doi: 10.1126/science.adg4320.

Wolfram-Schauerte M, Pozhydaieva N, Grawenhoff J, Welp LM, Silbern I, Wulf A, Billau FA, Glatter T, Urlaub H, Jäschke A, Hoefer K.  A viral ADP-ribosyltransferase attaches RNA chains to host proteins. Nature 2023 620, 1054–1062. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06429-2.

Luo S, Adam D, Giaveri S, Barthel S, Cestellos-Blanco S, Hege D, Paczia N, Castañeda-Losada L, Klose M, Arndt F, Heider J, Erb TJ. ATP production from electricity with a new-to-nature electrobiology module Joule 2023 7, 1745-1758. doi: 10.1016/j.joule.2023.07.012.

Bi S, Kargeti M, Colin R, Farke N, Link H,  Sourjik V. Dynamic fluctuations in a bacterial metabolic network. Nature Communications 2023 14, 2173. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-37957-0.

Ernst L, Barayeu U, Hädeler J, Dick TP, Klatt JM, Keppler F,  Rebelein JG. Methane formation driven by light and heat prior to the origin of life. Nature Communications 2023 14, 4363. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-39917-0.

McLean R, Schwander T, Diehl C, Cortina NS, Paczia N, Zarzycki J, Erb TJ. Exploring alternative pathways for the in vitro establishment of the HOPAC cycle for synthetic CO2 fixation. Science Advances 2023 9, eadh4299. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adh4299.

Steube N, Moldenhauer M, Weiland P, Saman D, Kilb A, Ramírez Rojas AA, Garg SG, Schindler D, Graumann PL, Benesch JLP, Bange G, Friedrich T, Hochberg GKA. Fortuitously compatible protein surfaces primed allosteric control in cyanobacterial photoprotection. Nature Ecology & Evolution 2023  7, 756–767. doi: 10.17617/3.44RHFZ.

Schulz L, Guo Z, Zarzycki J, Steinchen W, Schuller JM, Heimerl T, Prinz S, Mueller-Cajar O, Erb TJ, Hochberg GKA. Evolution of increased complexity and specificity at the dawn of form I Rubiscos. Science 2022 378, 155-160. doi: 10.1126/science.abq1416.

Dietrich HM, Righetto RD, Kumar A, Wietrzynski W, Trischler R, Schuller SK, Wagner J, Schwarz FM, Engel BD, Müller V,  Schuller JM. Membrane-anchored HDCR nanowires drive hydrogen-powered CO2 fixation. Nature 2022 607, 823-830. doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04971-z.

Ernst L, Steinfeld B, Barayeu U, Klintzsch T, Kurth M, Grimm D, Dick TP, Rebelein JG, Bischofs IB, Keppler F. Methane formation driven by reactive oxygen species across all living organisms. Nature 2022 603, 482-487. doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04511-9.

Bettenworth V, van Vliet S, Turkowyd B, Bamberger A, Wendt H, McIntosh M, Steinchen W, Endesfelder U, Becker A. Frequency modulation of a bacterial quorum sensing re­s­ponse. Nature Communications 2022 13, 2772. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-30307-6.

Giammarinaro PI, Young MKM, Steinchen W, Mais CN, Hochberg G, Yang J, Stevenson DM, Amador-Noguez D, Paulus A, Wang JD, Bange G. Diadenosine tetraphosphate regulates biosynthesis of GTP in Bacillus subtilis. Nature Microbiology 2022 7, 1442-1452. doi: 10.1038/s41564-022-01193-x.

Guo X, Sanchez-Londono M, Gomes-Filho JV, Hernández-Tamayo R, Rust S, Immel­man L, Schäfer P, Wiegel J, Graumann PL, Randau L. Characterization of the self-targeting Type IV CRISPR interference system in Pseudomonas oleo­vorans. Nature Microbiology 2022 7, 1870-1878. doi: 10.1038/s41564-022-01229-2.

Scheffen M, Marchal DG, Beneyton T, Schuller SK, Klose M, Diehl C, Lehmann, Pfister PJ, Carrillo M, He H, Aslan S, Cortina NS, Claus P, Bollschweiler D, Baret JC, Schuller JM, Zarzycki J, Bar-Even A, Erb TJ. A new-to-nature carboxylation module to improve na­tural and synthetic CO2 fixation. Nature Catalysis 2021 4, 105–115. doi: 10.1038/s41929-020-00557-y.

Klatt JM, Chennu A, Arbic BK, Biddanda BA, Dick GJ. Possible link between Earth’s rotation rate and oxygenation. Nature Geosciences 2021 14, 564–570. doi: 10.1038/s41561-021-00784-3.

Kurth JM, Nobu MK, Tamaki H, de Jonge N, Berger S, Jetten MSM, Yamamoto K, Mayumi D, Sakata S, Bai L, Cheng L, Nielsen JL, Kamagata Y, Wagner T, Welte CU. Methanogenic archaea use a bacteria-like methyltransferase system to demethoxylate aromatic compounds. ISME Journal 2021 15, 3549-3565. doi: 10.1038/s41396-021-01025-6.

Steffens L, Pettinato E, Steiner TM, Mall A, König S, Eisenreich W, Berg IA. High CO2 levels drive the TCA cycle backwards towards autotrophy. Nature 2021 592, 784-788. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03456-9.

Dieckmann MA, Beyvers S, Nkouamedjo-Fankep RC, Hanel PHG, Jelonek L, Blom J, Go­es­mann A. EDGAR3.0: comparative genomics and phylogenomics on a scalable in­fra­structure. Nucleic Acids Research 2021 49, W185-W192. doi: 10.1093/nar/ gkab341.

Krol E, Stuckenschneider L, Kästle J, Graumann PL, Becker A. Stable inheri­tance of Sinorhizobium meliloti cell growth polarity requires an FtsN-like protein and an amidase. Nature Communications 2021 12, 545. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-20739-3.

Miller TE, Beneyton T, Schwander T, Diehl C, Girault M, McLean R, Chotel T, Claus P, Cortina NS, Baret JC, Erb TJ. Light-powered CO2-fixation in a chloroplast mimic with na­tu­ral & synthetic parts. Science 2020 368, 649-654. doi: 10.1126/science.aaz6802.

Hochberg GKA, Liu Y, Marklund EG, Metzger BPH, Laganowsky A, Thornton JW. A hydrophobic ratchet entrenches molecular complexes. Nature 2020 588, 503-508. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-3021-2.

Preiner M, Igarashi K, Muchowska KB, Yu M, Varma SJ, Kleinermanns K, Nobu MK, Kamagata Y, Tüysüz H, Moran J, Martin WF. A hydrogen-dependent geochemical analogue of primordial carbon and energy metabolism. Nature Ecology and Evolution 2020 4, 534-542.                          doi: 10.1038/s41559-020-1125-6.

Osorio-Valeriano M, Altegoer F, Steinchen W, Urban S, Liu Y, Bange G, Thanbichler M. ParB-type DNA Segregation Proteins Are CTP-Dependent Molecular Switches. CellOA 2019 179, 1512-1524.e15. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.11.015.

Schada von Borzyskowski L, Severi F, Krüger K, Hermann L, Gilardet A, Sippel F, Pommerenke B, Claus P, Cortina NS, Glatter T, Zauner S, Zarzycki J, Fuchs BM, Bremer E, Maier UG, Amann RI, Erb TJ. Marine Proteobacteria metabolize glycolate via the β-hy­droxy­aspartate cycle. Nature 2019 575, 500-504. doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1748-4.

Linden G, Zhang L, Pieck F, Linne U, Kosenkov D, Tonner R, Vázquez O. Conditional singlet oxygen generation via DNA-targeted tetrazine bioorthogonal reaction. Angewandte Chemie International Edition 2019 58, 12868-12873. doi: 10.1002/ anie.201907093.

Bozhüyük KAJ, Linck A, Tietze A, Kranz J, Wesche F, Nowak S, Fleischhacker F, Shi YN, Grün P, Bode HB. Modification and de novo design of non-ribosomal peptide synthetases using specific assembly points within condensation domains. Nature Chemistry 2019 11, 653-661.         doi: 10.1038/s41557-019-0276-z.

Trösch R, Barahimipour R, Gao Y, Badillo Corona JA, Gotsmann VL, Zimmer D, Mühlhaus T, Zoschke R, Willmund F. Commonalities and differences of chloroplast translation in a green alga and land plants Nature Plants 2018 4, 564-575. doi: 10.1038/s41477-018-0211-0.

Mall A, Sobotta J, Huber C, Tschirner C, Kowarschik S, Bačnik K, Mergelsberg M, Boll M, Hügler M, Eisenreich W, Berg IA. Reversibility of citrate synthase allows autotrophic growth of a thermophilic bacterium. Science 2018 359, 563-567. doi: 10.1126/science. aao2410.

Rebelein JG, Stiebritz MT, Lee CC, Hu Y. Activation and reduction of carbon dioxide by nitrogenase iron proteins. Nature Chemical Biology 2017 13, 147-149. doi: 10.1038/ nchembio.2245.

Schwander T, Schada von Borzyskowski L, Burgener S, Cortina NS, Erb TJ. A synthetic pathway for the fixation of carbon dioxide in vitro. Science 2016 354, 900-904. doi: 10.1126/science.aah5237.