Molecular Cell Biology (Prof. Dr. Peter Nick)

Fritz-Haber-Weg, Gbd. 30.43 (Biology Tower), 5. floor. e-mail. How to find us

Interview in Biospektrum

Living is Searching (Springer-Nature 2023)

Secretary

• Miss Nicole Williams, R501, Tel. 0721-608 42142

INSTITUTE SEMINARS

the journal with the longest tradition in cell biology (Springer-Nature). We publish it. more...

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War and Peace: Conflict and Cooperation in a Tropical Insect Society

Biowissenschaftliches Kolloquium, Montag, 08. Juni 2026, 15:45-17:15, Criegee HS, Gbd. 30.41, Fritz-Haber-Weg 2

Prof. Raghavendra Gadagkar, National Science Chair, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

Many insect species live in societies that parallel, if not better, human societies in the sophistication and complexity of their organization, communication, division of labour and even their caste system. How do these insects achieve such social complexity? How has natural selection favoured social life over solitary life?  This is especially paradoxical because most individuals in the insect societies function as sterile slaves and help one or a small number of queens to reproduce. In my quest of the origins of sociality, I have focused on the Indian paper wasp  Ropalidia marginata, a primitively social wasp that appears to be on the brink of sociality.  With warm temperatures and favourable conditions throughout the year, tropical southern India provides a perpetual stage for these wasps to play out the drama of war and peace.  Perhaps the most significant message from my studies is that conflict and cooperation are intimately linked and maintaining a fine balance between the two is what social life is all about.

Prof. Gadagkar is, among others, member of the Leopoldina and National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

Biohacking with Pyriculol

Around half of the life forms on this planet live as parasites. The unvoluntary "hosts" fight back by immune systems. Also plants are endowed with immunity that is, however, completely different from ours. The complexity is comparable though and arose from an evolutionary arm race between plants and parasites. First, there is a broad basal immunity acting against entire groups of organisms (such as all bacteria or all fungi). However, evolution is a flow, meaning that plant pathogens evolved signals, termed effectors that can turn off the stress hormone jasmonate and, thus, basal immunity.  In a next round of arm race, plants developed proteins that are able to sense such manipulative signals and re-install immunity. Often, as a last  resort, triggered by salicylic acid (by the way the natural precursor of aspirine) the infected cell will commit suicide to pull the invader into death, by this protecting the neighbouring cells. We show in this study that the causative agent of Rice Blast, a fungal disease with massive impact on food security in many Asian countries, has invented a novel, devilishly sophisticated method to "hack" the immune system of its host. The fungus produces the polyketide Pyriculol that is a structural mimic of salicylic acid. This imitation meticulously evades important aspects of salicylic acid, though. While cell death is activated and the basal immunity (depending on jasmonic acid) is turned off, the formation of defence compounds that render the kamikaze strategy of the victim efficient is suppressed. At the same time, the neighbouring cells are overwhelmed by false alarm, such that they already start killing themselves before the fungus has even arrived. This sophisticated strategy was unveiled by Dr. Junning Ma who did his PhD with us funded by the Chinese Scholarship Council and has now been published in the Journal of Experimental Botany.

225. Ma J, Morel JB, Riemann M, Jacob S, Nick P. Pyriculol-mediated defence potentiation in rice: a non-pathogenic secondary metabolite enhances host immunity against Magnaporthe oryzae. J Exp Bot, 10.1093/jxb/erag061 - pdf

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The new "Strasburger"

127 years ago Eduard Strasburger founded the textbook of botany, which appeared now in the 38. edition - this makes the "Strasburger" the biology textbook with the longest history. Peter Nick contributed a couple of 100 pages to the topics structure and function of the plant body and plant development. The "Strasburger" pursues the goal to depict the entire knowledge on plants, comprehensively, up-to-date, and at the same time filtered. Even though it had never been easier to acquire information, the problem is progressively to filter relevant from irrelevant. Textbooks are, therefore, not outdated, but more important than ever. more...

FKI

The State Teaching Award 2015 was given to Peter Nick and Mathias Gutmann. The money was used to found the Forum. Beyond faculties and disciplines, we debate here on controversial topics. In the SS 2026 we address the question, whether non-human life forms should have rights. more...

ARTTI Podcast on Gene Technology in Agriculture. more...

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Microtubules and the Dogs of Hell

Cerberus, the three-headed Dog of Hell guards in Greek mythology the realm of dead, Hades. Herkules succeeds in putting the dog on a leash and by this to intrude into the other world. This metaphor seems to work also for plant immunity: during the so-called Hypersensitive Response the infected cell comits harakiri and by this pulls the attacker into death. This cellular suicide is executed by so-called metacaspases, protein degrading enzymes that by name, but not by evolutionary origin, derive from the caspases that do a similar job during the apoptosis of animal cells. But how does the cell prevent that these Dogs of Hell do not start their destructive work in healthy cells? We have addressed this question in cells of grapevine and found out that the central metacaspase 5 is bound to microtubules, a main component of the plant cytoskeleton. When the cell is sensing an attack (we mimic this in the experiment with chemical signals), it actively makes microtubules disappear and by this releases Cerberus from the leash, who, within a few hours, does a thorough job. Using a combination of cell biological and biochemical approaches we demonstrate this novel, hitherto unknown function of microtubules. 

Publication

222. Zhu X, Zhang K, Gong P, Riemann M, Nick P (2025) Unleash the Dogs of Death: Vitis Metacaspase 5, Microtubules, and Hypersensitive Response. Plant Cell Reports, doi 10.1007/s00299-025-03567-x - pdf

New Project in the Field of Vertical Farming

November 1, our new cooperation project with the Start-up Vertical Farming and the Max-Rubner-Institute, funded by the Federal Institute for Agriculture, will be launched. Running time is three years. A precursor project, funded by the State of Baden-Württemberg tested, in the Botanic Garden of the KIT, a prototype for a Vertical Farm device, where the accumulation of value giving compounds was stimulated by repeated gravity stimulation. In theis context, we discovered that aeroponics (spraying the roots with a nutritious mist) stimulates root growth to an extent never seen before. The new project will now valorise this discovery. Target are cash rhizome crops such as Ginger, Turmeric, or Wasabi. To protect the precious products from infection by pathogens, a new technology will be tested, where the roots are inoculated by root bacteria that had been identified by us previously. These microbes can stimulate plant immunity. This will allow to avoid chemical plant protection, but also circumvent the need for the extreme quarantine standards commonly used in Vertical Farming. This will lower costs considerable and extend the applicability of this new farming method far beyond current use. 

EvoDevo of Speciation

"Species" are a central concept of biology and usually understood as unit of propagation. This species concept works neatly for animals, because mating of individuals from different species usually do not work or lead to sterile progeny (a classic example would be the mule). Plants, however, do not choose their mating partner themselves, but use insects for doing so. Moreover, plants can circumvent problems with sexuality by asexual propagation. What does "species" now mean for plants? Dr. Sascha Wetters proposed here a new concept, whereby genes that control shape or geometry of flowers are drivers of speciation. To test this idea, he cracked a hard nut - the genus Sage, with more than 1000 known species, one of the most diverse genera at all. Here, he can show that a duplication of the gene switch GLOBOSA facilitated the colonisation of the New World by larger and less asymmetric flowers that recruited novel pollinators, hummingbirds, leading to the birth of numerous new species. This allows to bridge developmental biology and evolution. This work has now been published.

217. Wetters S, Nick P (2025) B-class gene GLOBOSA – a facilitator for enriched species diversity of Salvia in the New World? Plant Biol, 10.1111/plb.70002 - pdf

Together with partners in Colmar and Basel we try, in the project "Roots of Resilience" to stimulate grapevine immunity by root microbes we have identified in our previous research. more...

Together with the start-up Vertical Farm Tech and the Max-Rubner Institute we develop in the project "VFT4Hero" a Vertical Farm Strategy for the Superfood plants Ginger, Turmeric, and Wasabi.