Controlling cell shape is an essential function of all cells, which allows adjusting and adapting to various environments and requirements. This is critical in a number of cellular processes, particularly during cell polarization and migration. Combinations of several signaling pathways initiate changes of the cell shape and the outcome is seen as a remodeling of membrane- or cytoskeleton structures providing a binding scaffold for various factors and facilitating downstream cellular responses. 

The focus of the lab is to elucidate the mechanisms of cell shape formation using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches. Our expertise and the main method of choice is cryo-EM, which has been established as a prime approach to understand the molecular mechanisms of (super-)macromolecular assemblies. In the talk, I will discuss how upstream signaling factors are interacting with each other and how downstream remodeling of cytoskeleton microtubules occurs.