N. PINOTSIS
Dr. Nikos Pinotsis will join the department of Chemistry of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece as Associate Professor of Biochemistry in July 2023. Dr. Pinotsis graduated with a degree in Chemistry from the University of Athens in 1995 and obtained a master’s degree in Analytical Chemistry in 1998. In 1999 he joined the group of Dr I. Mavridis at the National Centre for Scientific Research Demokritos for a PhD in crystallography. In 2003 he moved to Hamburg to work as post-doctoral fellow at the EMBL-Hamburg outstation, focusing on proteins of the cardiac muscle. He continued his work on cytoskeletal proteins at the University of Vienna and since 2013 he is working at Birkbeck College, University of London, where currently is the coordinator of the protein crystallography and biophysics laboratories.
Dr N. Pinotsis is using a variety of structural biology approaches to elucidate the architecture and function of biological systems in health and disease. He is an expert in protein crystallography and cryoEM as well as in a variety of biophysical and molecular biology techniques. One of his main focuses is the understanding of the cardiac cytoarchitecture and how protein variants can cause cardiac arrest or pathologies of the heart. He is also working on the (super)complexes of the respiratory chain and their role in disease. In a third project he is focusing on inhibitors of the HIV capsids and more recently on the inhibition of various SARS-CoV-2 components.
Representative Publications (full list here)
1. A small molecule PI3Kα activator in cardioprotection and neuroregeneration. GQ Gong, B Bilanges, B Allsop, G Masson, V Roberton, T Askwith, S Oxenford, R Madsen, SE Conduit, D Bellini, M Fitzek, M Collier, O Najam, Z He, B Wahab, S McLaughlin, AW Chan, I Feierberg, A Madin, D Morelli, A Bhamra, V Vinciauskaite, KE Anderson, S Surinova, N Pinotsis, E Lopez-Guadamillas, M Wilcox, A Hooper, C Patel, MA Whitehead, TD Bunney, LR Stephens, PT Hawkins, M Katan, DM Yellon, SM Davidson, DM Smith, JB Phillips, R Angell, RL Williams, & B Vanhaesebroeck. Nature, 2021-09-14845C, in press
2. Two Ligand-Binding Sites on SARS-CoV-2 Non-Structural Protein 1 Revealed by Fragment-Based X-ray Screening. Ma S, Damfo S, Lou J, Pinotsis N, Bowler MW, Haider S, Kozielski F. Int J Mol Sci. 2022 Oct 18;23(20):12448. doi: 10.3390/ijms232012448.
3. Evasion of cGAS and TRIM5 defines pandemic HIV. Zuliani-Alvarez L, Govasli ML, Rasaiyaah J, Monit C, Perry SO, Sumner RP, McAlpine-Scott S, Dickson C, Rifat Faysal KM, Hilditch L, Miles RJ, Bibollet-Ruche F, Hahn BH, Boecking T, Pinotsis N, James LC, Jacques DA, Towers GJ. Nat Microbiol. 2022 Nov;7(11):1762-1776. doi: 10.1038/s41564-022-01247-0 PMID: 36289397
4. An intrinsic temporal order of c-JUN N-terminal phosphorylation regulates its activity by orchestrating co-factor recruitment. Waudby CA, Alvarez-Teijeiro S, Josue Ruiz E, Suppinger S, Pinotsis N, Brown PR, Behrens A, Christodoulou J, Mylona A. Nat Commun. 2022 Oct 17;13(1):6133. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-33866-w. PMID: 36253406
5. Characterization of the membrane interactions of phospholipase Cγ reveals key features of the active enzyme. Le Huray KIP, Bunney TD, Pinotsis N, Kalli AC, Katan M.Sci Adv. 2022 Jun 24;8(25):eabp9688. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abp9688. Epub 2022 Jun 24.PMID: 35749497
6. The role of the M-band myomesin proteins in muscle integrity and cardiac disease. Lamber EP, Guicheney P, Pinotsis N. J Biomed Sci. 2022; 29(1):18. doi: 10.1186/s12929-022-00801-6. PMID: 35255917
7. Calcium modulates the domain flexibility and function of an α-actinin similar to the ancestral α-actinin. Pinotsis N, Zielinska K, Babuta M, Arolas JL, Kostan J, Khan MB, Schreiner C, Salmazo A, Ciccarelli L, Puchinger M, Gkougkoulia EA, Ribeiro EA Jr, Marlovits TC, Bhattacharya A, Djinovic-Carugo K. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020;117(36):22101-22112. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1917269117. PMID: 32848067
8. Rcf2 revealed in cryo-EM structures of hypoxic isoforms of mature mitochondrial III-IV supercomplexes. Hartley AM, Meunier B, Pinotsis N, Maréchal A. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020;117(17):9329-9337. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1920612117. PMID: 32291341
9. Structure of yeast cytochrome c oxidase in a supercomplex with cytochrome bc1. Hartley AM, Lukoyanova N, Zhang Y, Cabrera-Orefice A, Arnold S, Meunier B, Pinotsis N, Maréchal A. Nat Struct Mol Biol. 2019:78-83. doi: 10.1038/s41594-018-0172-z. PMID: 30598554
10. Structure of the WipA protein reveals a novel tyrosine protein phosphatase effector from Legionella pneumophila. Pinotsis N, Waksman G. J Biol Chem. 2017;292(22):9240-9251. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M117.781948. PMID: 28389563
11. The structure and regulation of human muscle α-actinin. Ribeiro Ede A Jr, Pinotsis N, Ghisleni A, Salmazo A, Konarev PV, Kostan J, Sjöblom B, Schreiner C, Polyansky AA, Gkougkoulia EA, Holt MR, Aachmann FL, Zagrović B, Bordignon E, Pirker KF, Svergun DI, Gautel M, Djinović-Carugo K. Cell. 2014;159(6):1447-60. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2014.10.056. PMID: 25433700
12. Superhelical architecture of the myosin filament-linking protein myomesin with unusual elastic properties. Pinotsis N, Chatziefthimiou SD, Berkemeier F, Beuron F, Mavridis IM, Konarev PV, Svergun DI, Morris E, Rief M, Wilmanns M. PLoS Biol. 2012;10(2):e1001261. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001261. PMID: 22347812
13. Molecular basis of the C-terminal tail-to-tail assembly of the sarcomeric filament protein myomesin. Pinotsis N, Lange S, Perriard JC, Svergun DI, Wilmanns M. EMBO J. 2008;27(1):253-64. doi: 10.1038/sj.emboj.7601944. PMID: 18059477
14. Second SH3 domain of ponsin solved from powder diffraction. Margiolaki I, Wright JP, Wilmanns M, Fitch AN, Pinotsis N. J Am Chem Soc. 2007;129(38):11865-71. doi: 10.1021/ja073846c. PMID: 17784760
15. Palindromic assembly of the giant muscle protein titin in the sarcomeric Z-disk. Zou P, Pinotsis N, Lange S, Song YH, Popov A, Mavridis I, Mayans OM, Gautel M, Wilmanns M. Nature. 2006, 439(7073):229-33. doi: 10.1038/nature04343. PMID: 16407954