Christophe Ampe
Molecular Cell Biology and Biochemistry of the Actin Cytoskeleton
VIB Department of Medical Protein Research, UGent

PhD: Univ. of Ghent, Ghent, Belgium, '87 Postdoc: Yale Univ., Connecticut, USA, '88-'92 VIB Group leader since 1996

e-mail phone +32 9 264 93 36 ADDRESS

Current team members
Group leader: Christophe Ampe
Staff scientist: Marleen Van Troys
Postdoctoral scientist: Anja Lambrechts
Ph.D. Students: Davina Tondeleir, Lynn Huyck
Support personnel: Davy Waterschoot, Karima Bakkali

Keywords
actin cytoskeleton - actin function and regulation - cell migration and invasion - neurite outgrowth - functional analysis of mutations

Science

Context and questions
Cellular motility is essential for morphogenesis during development and for survival. The research group investigates different aspects of cell motility, resulting from the dynamic reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton. This process is orchestrated by many actin binding proteins and their regulatory ligands. Whereas many players in actin based motility have already been identified, their roles, their interplay and their regulation in specific motile phenomena are only partly understood. Our long-term goal is to understand the biology of the actin system in motility in health and disease; e.g. in neuronal outgrowth during development and  in cancer cell migration during metastasis. This involves investigating the temporal and spatial regulation of a complex subcellular system, preferably in a quantitative manner, in relation to a cellular phenotype. For the latter we mainly focus on cell migration and tumor cell invasion and employ quantification of migration parameters, such as cell speed and directionality. To achieve our goal we integrate biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology on various cancer cell lines or on primary cells derived from mice, including a unique b-actin knock-out mouse.

Important achievements
We have focused on actin binding proteins that modulate the actin polymerisation cycle . We made major contributions in understanding the structure-function relationships of these proteins with respect to their interaction with actin and regulatory ligands and in  their impact on actin dynamics and cellular motility. Recently we have been focusing on novel actin binding proteins, on actin binding proteins upregulated in cancer and on interaction partners of known actin binding proteins. 
The group has also been active in the chaperone field since the notion that actin requires the help of a specific complex of eight subunits to reach its native conformation. In collaboration with Prof. Nicholas Cowan, we were at the forefront in this field by identifying players in the folding pathways of actin and of a and b-tubulin. More recently, we have also investigated actin mutants that are the underlying cause of various myopathies.

Dhaese S, Jonckheere V, Goethals M, Waltregny D, Vandekerckhove J, Ampe C, Van Troys M
Functional and profiling studies prove that prostate cancer upregulated neuroblastoma thymosin beta is the true human homologue of rat thymosin beta15
FEBS LETT 581, 4809-15, 2007



Lambrechts A, Jonckheere V, Peleman C, Polet D, De Vos W, Vandekerckhove J, Ampe C
Profilin-I-ligand interactions influence various aspects of neuronal differentiation
J CELL SCI 119, 1570-8, 2006



Costa f, Rommelaere H, Waterschoot D, Sethi k, Nowak j, Laing g, Ampe C, Machesky m
Myopathy mutations in {alpha}-skeletal-muscle actin cause a range of molecular defects
J CELL SCI 117, 3367-3377, 2004



Lambrechts A, Van Troys M, Ampe C
The actin cytoskeleton in normal and pathological cell motility
INT J BIOCHEM CELL B 36, 1890-1909, 2004



Van Troys M, Ono K, Dewitte D, Jonckheere V, De Ruyck N, Vandekerckhove J, Ono S, Ampe C
TetraThymosinbeta is required for actin dynamics in Caenorhabditis elegans and acts via functionally different actin-binding repeats
MOL BIOL CELL 15, 4735-4748, 2004

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