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Welcome to Marte Meeusen - New student in Nissen Group

Marte will be working on a project with Michael Habeck entitled "Determinants of Na+ affinity in alpha1 and alpha3 isoforms of Na,K-ATPase". They work with Na+,K+-ATPase chimeras to understand the basis of high vs. low Na+ affinity between the housekeeping alpha1 isoform and the neuron-specific alpha3 isoform, which has low Na+ affinity and therefore activity that only kicks in at higher Na+ concentrations in firing neurons. With alpha3 specific amino acids clustered in cytoplasmic domains far away from the ion-binding sites we aim at exchanging those domains with the corresponding ones from alpha1 in order to generate a version of alpha3 with high Na-affinity. We hope that these investigations will strengthen our understanding of Na,K-ATPase isoform not just under physiological but also pathophysiological conditions.