@rbdamgaard.bsky.social
Associate Professor, Section for Medical Biotechnology, Technical University of Denmark. Studies ubiquitin signalling in inflammation, metabolism, and disease.
🧐 What if metabolic defects are not just a consequence of inflammatory disease - but actively contribute to it?
Inflammation and metabolism are deeply intertwined, but the molecular links remain unclear.
Our new paper in Cell Death & Differentiation uncovers one. 🧵👇
nature.com/articles/s41...
Thanks, Leo
16.02.2026 15:03 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0...Brent Ryan, Joern Dengjel, @gyrd-lab.bsky.social, @elliottlab.bsky.social, Lisa Frankel, @nievespeltzer.bsky.social, and Geert van Loo.
16.02.2026 12:00 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Huge congratulations to Camilla Elbæk, co-authors, and amazing collaborators on this effort 👏 @keisakamoto.bsky.social @labsakamoto.bsky.social, @annikameinander.bsky.social, Grahame Hardie...
16.02.2026 12:00 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0💡 This links inflammatory ubiquitin signalling directly to metabolic control.
Could metabolic dysfunction be a driver - not just a consequence - of inflammatory disease?
🔬 Using cell lines 🧫, mice 🐁, flies 🪰, and patient cells 🏥, we found:
✔️ LUBAC + OTULIN regulate AMPK during energetic stress
✔️ M1-linked ubiquitination promotes AMPK activity and metabolic adaptation
✔️ Loss of this axis reduces cell and organism resilience to starvation
👉 We show that M1-linked ubiquitination by LUBAC directly regulates AMPK, the master energy sensor of the cell.
LUBAC and M1-linked ubiquitin are best known for regulating inflammatory signalling and cell death 💀☠️.
But they also control metabolic signalling and adaptation.
🧐 What if metabolic defects are not just a consequence of inflammatory disease - but actively contribute to it?
Inflammation and metabolism are deeply intertwined, but the molecular links remain unclear.
Our new paper in Cell Death & Differentiation uncovers one. 🧵👇
nature.com/articles/s41...
M1-linked ubiquitination by LUBAC regulates AMPK signalling and the response to energetic stress
#Drosophila
Tomato? or tomahto?
13.02.2026 19:44 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Interesting article and accompanying spotlight on the cross-talk between ciliary homeostasis and ubiquitination (written by Jonathan Pruneda and @rbdamgaard.bsky.social).
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
💡 Ciliary homeostasis turns out to depend on an unexpected tug-of-war between UFMylation and ubiquitination.
In a recent editorial in Cell Death & Differentiation,
@jnpruneda.bsky.social and I highlight new work from Wang et al. 🧵👇
This work expands the landscape of PTM crosstalk and raises the possibility that ciliary dysfunction contributes to neurological and developmental disorders linked to the UFM1 pathway.
🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Mechanistically, UFMylation and ubiquitination compete for the same lysine on IFT88, forming a mutually exclusive modification switch that controls protein stability and ciliary integrity across tissues.
29.01.2026 14:49 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0While ubiquitination is a well-known regulator of protein stability, the roles of many ubiquitin-like modifiers remain unclear. Here, UFL1-mediated UFMylation emerges as a protective signal for the ciliary protein IFT88.
29.01.2026 14:49 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
💡 Ciliary homeostasis turns out to depend on an unexpected tug-of-war between UFMylation and ubiquitination.
In a recent editorial in Cell Death & Differentiation,
@jnpruneda.bsky.social and I highlight new work from Wang et al. 🧵👇
🚨 Postdoc position in my lab!
A project on protein binder discovery for K6-linked #ubiquitin to investigate their role in infection is available.
📍 DTU, Copenhagen, Denmark
⏰ Deadline: 18 December 2025
Apply here: efzu.fa.em2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
🚨 Postdoc position in my lab!
A project on protein binder discovery for K6-linked #ubiquitin to investigate their role in infection is available.
📍 DTU, Copenhagen, Denmark
⏰ Deadline: 18 December 2025
Apply here: efzu.fa.em2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
A #postdoc position in atypical #ubiquitin signalling and protein binder engineering is opening soon in my lab at DTU Bioengineering! Get in touch if you are interested.
30.10.2025 14:13 — 👍 7 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 1
🚀 Off to our Research Retreat with the Section for Medical Biotechnology, DTU Biotechnology and Biomedicine.
Two days of science, ideas & innovation 🧬💡
12 faculty pitches, 30+ PhDs & postdocs, and endless opportunities for new collaborations 🔬🤝✨
A few months ago, our review “The Molecular Toolbox for Linkage Type-Specific Analysis of Ubiquitin Signaling” 🧬🧰🛠️ came out in ChemBioChem. Time to give it a spotlight!
chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Hope this serves as a useful overview for anyone working on ubiquitin signalling or PTMs. Big thanks to those who did the heavy lifting in the writing process: Julian Koch, Camilla Reiter Elbæk & @dompri.bsky.social 🙌😊
16.09.2025 07:45 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0We also highlight:
✅ Trade-offs between specificity, throughput, & sensitivity
✅ Gaps in the current toolbox where innovation is needed
✅ The value of combining orthogonal methods for robust insight
…alongside analytical platforms such as:
✅ Immunoblotting 🧫📊
✅ Fluorescence microscopy 🔬🌈
✅ Enzymatic assays 🧪⏱️
✅ Mass spectrometry ⚡📈
In the review, we summarise state-of-the-art tools for probing linkage-type specificity:
🎯 Antibodies & antibody-like molecules
🎯 Affimers
🎯 Engineered Ub-binding domains
🎯 Catalytically inactive deubiquitinases
🎯 Macrocyclic peptides
Why this matters ⬇️
Ubiquitin chain diversity, i.e. different linkage types, mixed or branched chains, is central to cell signalling.
But analysing these chain types specifically remains a big challenge.
A few months ago, our review “The Molecular Toolbox for Linkage Type-Specific Analysis of Ubiquitin Signaling” 🧬🧰🛠️ came out in ChemBioChem. Time to give it a spotlight!
chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Is it still useful to insist that authors spell out every protein name in research papers? Many names are long, obscure, and say nothing about function... we might as well call them James, Joan, and John.
14.08.2025 12:09 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0The goal of a PhD is not to learn some facts or read a few papers or learn a bunch of techniques. The goal of a PhD is to learn independence, problem solving, how to finish things you start, resilience, & gain the ability to adapt & think creatively. Learning these things is hard.
13.08.2025 17:28 — 👍 335 🔁 87 💬 4 📌 5
