Our Team

Postdoctoral researcher

Aarhus University

I am a postdoc at Aarhus University, I am working on signaling downstream of ligand perception. My key area of research is to understand the phosphor code on receptor kinases after perception of symbiotic bacteria. In order to perform my research I work on multiple receptor kinases in the model organism Lotus japonicus. I employ phosphor enrichment and perform mass spectrometry in order to identify specific phosphor sites. Furthermore, I employ proximity labeling in order to identify novel interactors of the symbiotic receptor kinases to understand how the signal is transmitted from the plasma membrane to the nucleus. In the future, I plan to use the knowledge gained in Lotus japonicus to investigate similar processes in Barley and Maize.

Before joining Aarhus University as a post doc, I did my PhD at Freiburg University working on membrane organizing with a focus on remorin proteins (Abel et al 2021), optogenetic where I was involved in the development of a plant usable light inducible promoter (Ochoa-Fernandez, Abel et al 2020) and establishment of proximity labeling in plants using TurboID (Arora, Abel et al 2020). I did my undergrads at Aarhus University working on small RNAs role in root nodule symbiosis (Tsikou et al 2018).

Publications:

20 Jan 2023Nanobody-driven signaling reveals the core receptor complex in root nodule symbiosis Science. Author(s): Henriette Rübsam, Christina Krönauer, Nikolaj B. Abel, Hongtao Ji, Damiano Lironi, Simon B. Hansen, Marcin Nadzieja, Marie V. Kolte, Dörte Abel, Noor de Jong, Lene H. Madsen, Huijun, Jens Stougaard, Simona Radutoiu , and Kasper R. Andersen (2023)

29 Jan 2021A hetero-oligomeric remorin-receptor complex regulates plant development Author(s): Nikolaj B. Abel, Corinna A. Buschle, Casandra Hernandez-Ryes, Sandy S. Burkart, Anne-Flore Deroubaix, Julia Mergner, Julien Gronnier, Iris K. Jarsch, Jessica Folgmann, Karl Heinz Braun, Emmanuelle Bayer, Véronique Germain, Paul Derbyshire, Frank L.H. Menke, Birgit Kemmerling, Cyril Zipfel, Bernhard Küster, Sébastien Mongrand, Macarena Marín, Thomas Ott

27 Jul 2020PULSE – Optogenetic control of gene expression in plants in the presence of ambient white light Author(s): Rocio Ochoa-Fernandez, Nikolaj B. Abel, Franz-Georg Wieland, Jenia Schlegel, Leonie A. Koch, J. Benjamin Miller, Raphael Engesser, Giovanni Giuriani, Simon M. Brandl, Jens Timmer, Wilfried Weber, Thomas Ott, Rüdiger Simon and Matias D. Zurbriggen

11 Nov 2020Establishment of Proximity-dependent Biotinylation Approaches in Different Plant Model Systems Author(s): Deepanksha Arora*, Nikolaj B. Abel*, Chen Liu*, Petra Van Damme*, Klaas Yperman, Lam Dai Vu, Jie Wang, Anna Tornkvist, Francis Impens, Barbara Korbei, Dominique Eeckhout, Jelle Van Leene, Alain Goossens, Geert De Jaeger, Thomas Ott, Panagiotis Moschou and Daniel Van Damme (2020)

12 Oct 2018Systemic control of legume susceptibility to rhizobial infection by a mobile microRNA. Author(s): Daniela Tsikou, Zhe Yan, Dennis B. Holt, Nikolaj B. Abel, Dugald E. Reid, Lene H. Madsen, Hemal Bhasin, Moritz Sexauer, Jens Stougaard and Katharina Markmann