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Prof. Dr. Dagmar Wachten

Member, Steering-Committee Member

Institute of Innate Immunity

Venusberg - Campus 1 53127 Bonn

dwachten@uni-bonn.de

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We aim to understand how cilia work and what their function is. Cilia are subcellular compartments that protrude from the surface of almost every mammalian cell. Cilia can be grouped into two major classes: a) primary cilia, which are immotile and b) motile cilia, which are also called flagella. A prominent example for the latter are sperm flagella. Ciliary dysfunction leads to severe diseases commonly referred to as ciliopathies. They comprise e.g. polycystic kidney disease, obesity, blindness, and infertility. However, the signaling pathways controlling ciliary function are ill-defined. To study ciliary signaling with high spatial and temporal precision, we combine optogenetics and genetically-encoded biosensors with high-resolution microscopy, mouse genetics, and biochemistry. This multidisciplinary approach allows not only to investigate ciliary signaling, but can be applied to any subcellular compartment to study its function with spatial and temporal resolution.

Dagmar Wachten

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Recent publications

  • Size-dependent plastic exposure disrupts macrophage function and tissue-specific metabolism.

    Nature metabolism

    Authors: Nikola Makdissi, Maria Francesca Viola, Lisa Maria Steinheuer, Nelli Blank-Stein, Ronja Kardinal, Fabrizio Musacchio, Eliana Franco Taveras, Virginia Aliprandi, Katharina Sieckmann, Akram Abdulkadyrov, Marina L Mayer, Marie-Louise Diefenbach-Wilke, Diana Fink, Hannes Beckert, Stefan Böhmdorfer, Quentin Deveuve, Frederike J Graelmann, Katharina Mauel, Nele Kronau, Jake Thomas, David Bejarano, Andreas Schlitzer, Sandra Högler, Mohamed H Yaghmour, Joerg Heeren, Christoph Thiele, Lukas Kenner, Felix Meissner, Falk Nimmerjahn, Martin Fuhrmann, Dagmar Wachten, Kevin Thurley, Elvira Mass

  • Adipose ILC2s depend on acetyl-CoA carboxylase 1 to maintain metabolic health.

    Cell metabolism

    Authors: Fotios Karagiannis, Maria Rafailia Theodorou, Fabian Nikolka, Maria Doverman, Dhruvi Shah, Chantal Wientjens, Timothy R McCulloch, Ronja Kardinal, David Colon, Jelena Zurkovic, Jiangyan Yu, Julia Anna Noras, Patricia Weiss, Roman Rombo, Tim Sparwasser, Zeinab Abdullah, Felix Meissner, Christoph Thiele, Jan Hasenauer, Dagmar Wachten, Karsten Hiller, Christoph Wilhelm

  • Primary cilia: master conductors of cellular communication in development and disease.

    Nature reviews. Nephrology

    Authors: Oskar K Thomsen, Gaia Pigino, Lotte B Pedersen, Gregory J Pazour, Dagmar Wachten, Søren T Christensen

All publications by Prof. Dr. Dagmar Wachten