© Raphael Schleutker

Research Topic

Our laboratory studies the interactions that occur between incoming animal viruses and their host cells during early infection. Viruses are simple, obligatory, intracellular parasites that depend on the host cell for most of the steps in the replication cycle. This is particularly critical during cell entry, which occurs usually by endocytic uptake and intracellular vesicle transport to deliver the genome to the site of replication. For this, viruses hijack cellular processes for signaling, membrane trafficking, intra- and inter-cellular transport, nuclear import and export, and molecular sorting.  As such, viruses can also be used as valuable tools to analyze any cellular mechanism that they hijack. Accordingly, our research focusses as much on the understanding of the basic cell biology of of the cell as it does help to fight viral diseases. 

Currently, we are interested in two complex cellular mechanisms that human papillomaviruses (HPV) hijack for their cell entry: (i) a novel endocytic mechanism that is barely understood, and that is in search for a cell biological function; (ii) mitosis and the cellular control of segregation of chromosomes. In this CRC, we ask how virus engagement of cellular receptor molecules regulates the novel endocytic pathway and how signals are translated into formation of endocytic pits using cellular and molecular techniques in combination with live cell and superresolution microsopy in live cells.

Selected Publications

  • Becker, M., Dominguez, M., Greune, L., Soria-Martinez, L., Pfleiderer, M.M., Schowalter, R., Buck, C.B., Blaum, B.S., Schmidt, M.A., and Schelhaas, M. (2019). Infectious Entry of Merkel Cell Polyomavirus. Journal of Virology, 93. 10.1128/JVI.02004-18.
  • Bannach, C., Brinkert, P., Kuhling, L., Greune, L., Schmidt, M.A., and Schelhaas, M. (2020). Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor and Abl2 Kinase Regulate Distinct Steps of Human Papillomavirus 16 Endocytosis. Journal of Virology 94. 10.1128/JVI.02143-19.
  • Soria-Martinez, L., Bauer, S., Giesler, M., Schelhaas, S., Materlik, J., Janus, K., Pierzyna, P., Becker, M., Snyder, N.L., Hartmann, L., and Schelhaas, M. (2020). Prophylactic Antiviral Activity of Sulfated Glycomimetic Oligomers and Polymers. Journal of the American Chemical Society 142, 5252-5265. 10.1021/jacs.9b13484.
  • Lai, K.Y., Rizzato, M., Aydin, I., Villalonga-Planells, R., Drexler, H.C.A., and Schelhaas, M. (2021). A Ran-binding protein facilitates nuclear import of human papillomavirus type 16. PLoS pathogens 17, e1009580. 10.1371/journal.ppat.1009580.
  • Rizzato, M., Mao, F., Chardon, F., Lai, K.Y., Villalonga-Planells, R., Drexler, H.C.A., Pesenti, M.E., Fiskin, M., Roos, N., King, K.M., Li, S., Gamez, E.R., Greune, L., Simon, C., Van Doorslaer, K., Campos, S.K., and Schelhaas, M. (2023). Master mitotic kinases regulate viral genome delivery during papillomavirus cell entry. Nature Communications  14, 355. 10.1038/s41467-023-35874-w.