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Group leader: Korthlab

Prof. Dr. Carsten Korth
Institute of Neuropathology
Heinrich-Heine-University
Moorenstraße 5
40225 Düsseldorf


The Korthlab investigates aberrant proteostasis as a cause for brain disease. Protein misassembly, misfolding or misprocessing in brain diseases, and the develops pharmacotherapies to interfere with or prevent these protein pathologies in neurodegenerative disease as well as in chronic mental illnesses such as schizophrenia or the recurrent affective disorders. There is a broad covering of molecular techniques from expression of recombinant proteins in E. coli, to advanced molecular biology techniques such as library generation and screening, gene knockout, and gene engineering in transgenic mice and rats, to analysis of tissue and quantitative behavioral studies, as well as translational work using patients tissue specimens and fluids.

Specific areas of research (see also: Korthlab)
  1. Investigation of aberrant proteostasis in brain diseases. A current focus is the identification of molecular interfaces linking external factors with critical, disease-typical circuitry in neurodegenerative and chronic mental diseases through investigating virus-induced dysfunctional proteostasis. The identified molecular interfaces are explored as targets for pharmacotherapy (link).
  2. Investigating the biological causes of schizophrenia or the recurrent affective disorders, and the development of biomarkers able to stratify patient subsets (link).
  3. Investigating the aspect of neuronal aging as aberrant proteostasis and analysis of its molecular mechanisms (link).
Further information
Selected Publications
  1. Müller-Schiffmann A,  Torres T, Kitaygorodskyy A, Ramani A, Alatza A , Sarah Tschirner S , Ingrid Prikulis I , Shaofeng Y , Debendranath Dey D, Bader V, Rozemuller A, Wray S, Gopalakrishnan J,  Riek R, Lingappa VR, Korth C (2021) Macrophage migration inhibitory factor is a valid drug target at the intersection of herpes simplex virus 1 replication and Alzheimer´s disease-relevant cellular pathology. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.11.459903v1 (Preprint)
  2. Müller-Schiffmann A, Michon M, Lingappa AF, Yu SF, Du L, Deiter F, Broce S, Mallesh S, Crabtree J, Lingappa UF, Macieik A, Müller L, Ostermann PN, Andrée M, Adams O, Schaal H, Hogan RJ, Tripp RA, Appaiah U, Anand SK, Campi TW, Ford MJ, Reed JC, Lin J, Akintunde O, Copeland K, Nichols C, Petrouski E, Moreira AR, Jiang IT, DeYarman N, Brown I, Lau S, Segal I, Goldsmith D, Hong S, Asundi V, Briggs EM, Phyo NS, Froehlich M, Onisko B, Matlack K, Dey D, Lingappa JR, Prasad MD, Kitaygorodskyy A, Solas D, Boushey H, Greenland J, Pillai S, Lo MK, Montgomery JM, Spiropoulou CF, Korth C, Selvarajah S, Paulvannan K, Lingappa VR. (2022) A Pan-respiratory Antiviral Chemotype Targeting a Transient Host Multiprotein Complex. bioRxiv. 2022 Jul 19:2021.01.17.426875. doi: 10.1101/2021.01.17.426875. (Preprint)
  3. Marreiros R, Müller-Schiffmann A, Trossbach SV, Prikulis I, Hänsch S, Weidkamp-Peters S, Moreira AR, Sahu S, Soloviev I, Selvarajah S, Lingappa VR, Korth C (2020) Disruption of cellular proteostasis by H1N1 influenza A virus causes α-synuclein aggregation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 117(12):6741-6751. Link
  4. Müller-Schiffmann A, Trossbach SV, Lingappa VR, Korth C (2020) Viruses as truffle hounds for the discovery of brain cellular pathology. Trends in Neurosciences  11:S0166-2236(20)30267-8. doi: 10.1016/j.tins.2020.11.004.
  5. Korth C & Fangerau H (2020) Blood tests for diagnosing schizophrenia: self-inflicted limits in psychiatry. The Lancet Psychiatry 7(10):911-914. Link
  6. Ramani A, Müller L, Osterman PN, Gabriel E, Abida-Islam P, Müller-Schiffmann A, Mariappan A, Goureau O, Gruell H, Walker A, Andrée M, Hauka S, Houwaart T, Dilthey A, Wohlgemuth K, Omran H, Klein F, Wieczorek D, Adams O, Timm J, Korth C, Schaal H, Gopalakrishnan J (2020) SARS-CoV-2 targets neurons of 3D human brain organoids. EMBO Journal, e2020106230. doi: 10.15252/embj.2020106230
  7. van Gerresheim EF, Herring A, Gremer L, Müller-Schiffmann A, Keyvani K, Korth C. (2020) The interaction of insoluble Amyloid-β with soluble Amyloid-β dimers decreases Amyloid-β plaque numbers. Neuropathology and Applied Neurobiology. 47(5):603-610. Link
  8. Trossbach SV, Hecher L, Schafflick D, Lautwein T, Tschirner S Deenen R, Köhrer K, Fehsel K, Papazova I, Malchow B, Hasan A, Winterer G, Schmitt A, Hörste G, Falkai P, Korth C (2019) Dysregulation of a specific immune-related network of genes biologically defines a subset of schizophrenia. Translational Psychiatry 9(1):156. Link
  9. Bradshaw NJ & Korth C (2019) Protein misassembly and aggregation as potential convergence points for non-genetic causes of chronic mental illness. Molecular Psychiatry, 24(7):936-951. Link
  10. Trossbach SV, Bader V, Hecher L, Pum ME,  Prikulis I, Schäble S, de Souza Silva MA, Su P, Boulat B, Chwiesko C, Lohr KM, Stout KA, Weisshaupt, Masoud S, Godsave SF, Bilzer T, Steiner H, Peters PJ, Bauer A, Sauvage M, Ramsey AJ, Miller GW, Liu F, Seeman P, Brandon NJ, Huston JP, Korth C. (2016) Misassembly of non-mutant Disrupted-in-schizophrenia 1 (DISC1) protein is linked to altered dopamine homeostasis and behavioral deficits. Mol Psychiarty. 21(11):1561-1572. Link
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