The Schindler Lab

HIV-1 Vpr induces an NFAT-controlled transcriptional program in primary CD4+ T cells | mBio The HIV-1 accessory protein Vpr is known for its profound effect on the host proteome. It degrades many cellular proteins, including transcription factors and DNA-associated proteins. In addition, Vpr...

If you’d like to learn more, here’s our paper: journals.asm.org/doi/full/10....

HIV-1 Vpr does more than degrade cellular proteins! Johanna and Carlos dug deeper and found that Vpr activates the transcription factor NFAT to reprogram T cells. Nearly half of Vpr-deregulated genes were NFAT-controlled, and NFAT inhibition eased Vpr-induced G2 arrest and reduced HIV-1 replication.

Very happy to have participated to the #RETROPATH2025 meeting in Tubingen: I had the pleasure to chair the last but great session yesterday! a lot of insights on #retroviruses in particular endoretroviruses! Thank you Michael Schindler and Daniel Sauter for the awsome programme!

Dylan Postmus giving a presentation on his work at the RetroPATH meeting

View from a boat ride on the Neckar River in Tübingen, Germany.

Had an excellent time at this year’s #RetroPATH2025 meeting in Tübingen, Germany, talking about my work on #HIVcure. Many thanks to @agschindler.bsky.social and Daniel Sauter for hosting. Especially interesting was the variety of talks on #HERVs @goffinetlab.bsky.social @lstmnews.bsky.social

Last week, @ako98.bsky.social gave her first poster presentation at the #Retropath meeting in Tübingen, where I also presented the excellent work of João Côrte-Real. @agschindler.bsky.social and @sauterlab.bsky.social did a fantastic job organizing the meeting.

#ProudPI #Retroviruses

We’re excited to welcome retrovirologists to the 34th RetroPATH Conference in Tübingen! Looking forward to inspiring talks and engaging discussions.

HIV-1 manipulates CD96 on CD4+ T cells to subvert antiviral immunity HIV-1 down-regulates CD96, revealing the role for this receptor in regulating the antiviral immune responses in CD4+ T cells.

Excited to share our latest publication www.science.org/doi/10.1126/..., where we uncover a novel mechanism by which HIV-1 evades the host antiviral immune response.

A quick hii and we are now officially on Bluesky 🎉

Weekend well spent: 24 hours, 248.1 km, one awesome lab team 🎉
#24hrun #Dettenhausen

Coming back from the 50th anniversary of #cshretro. Johanna presented two of her PhD projects and represented our group in discussions throughout the week. A great opportunity to share research and connect with the international retrovirology community!

Metabolic modeling elucidates phenformin and atpenin A5 as broad-spectrum antiviral drugs against RNA viruses - Communications Biology A metabolic modeling approach reveals druggable host cell pathways essential for viral replication across various viruses with minimal cytotoxicity. These findings highlight cellular metabolism as a promising target for antiviral therapy.

Excited to share our latest collobarative study with the @dr_drae and Kaleta labs! Using scRNA-Seq–driven metabolic modeling, we identified phenformin & atpenin A5 as potent broad-spectrum antivirals targeting host metabolism.
Out now: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-025-08148-y

🚨 Calling all retrovirologists Join us for RetroPATH 2025, one of the worldwide leading meetings in retrovirus research! Abstract submission and registration is open.
📍Tübingen, Germany | 📅 October 6–9, 2025
Register now! https://evis.events/event/469/
#RetroPATH #Retroviruses #HERV

Just wrapped up an amazing few days at the European Congress of Virology in Croatia. Great to connect with colleaques and see the lastest research developments. #ecv2025

Big few months for our lab! ✨
One brilliant Defense - congrats to George on successfully defending his PhD!
We also hit the road for the #GfV conference in Hamburg, sharing our latest work and connecting with the #virology community.

Huge congrats to Rabea for successfully defending her PhD yesterday 🎉🎓

We are thrilled to announce that we will be hosting the next Retropath Conference in Tübingen together with the group of Daniel Sauter. Save the date and we can not wait to see you all there. #Retropath #Tübingen https://x.com/Retro_Path/status/1847556280858144985

Matteo took the stage at the Humboldt Networking Meeting #AvHNet to share his research! 🔬👏 https://x.com/MBosso92/status/1859670805204041800

🥳Natalia and Johanna representing our team at the HCV-Flavi conference this year. They are presenting their research on a small compound called C10 - a broadly acting #flavivirus inhibitor.

Enjoying the last sunny day on the Neckar ☀️ #labretreat #canoe

📢Find out more about this exciting project and how to apply here: http://www.eusv.eu/job-market/

Interested? https://www.medizin.uni-tuebingen.de/de/das-klinikum/einrichtungen/institute/virologie-epidemiologie/forschung/molekulare-virologie #ScienceJobs

🎉Congrats to Natalia for receiving the #AtheneGrant at the University of Tübingen! This grant will support her work on developing nanobodies to fight Dengue fever and aims to create new therapies that could neutralize all four Dengue serotypes. #DengueResearch #WomenInScience

Congratulations to our former student Sophia Kieferle on being awarded the MoBBEL price by the biochemists in Tübingen for her master thesis! She investigated Spike expression and release in primary cells upon BioNTech Corona vaccine treatment. Wishing her continued success!🚀

Novel ACE2 fusion protein with adapting activity against SARS-CoV-2 variants in vitro - PubMed Despite the successful development of vaccines and neutralizing antibodies to limit the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), emerging variants prolong the pandemic and emphasize the persistent need to develop effective antiviral treatment regimens. Recombinant anti …

Their ACE2-M fusion protein offers a promising new therapy against SARS-CoV-2, effective even against escape variants. Amazing work! #Innovation #Science2Start #biotech #COVID19 #beLab2122
👉https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36969164/

Today, Natalia and Raphaël are presenting their research projects at the #forschungstag2024 from the @bwstiftung. We are happy to hear more about innovative science in #badenwürttemberg. https://x.com/bwstiftung/status/1805517931096293793

Sadly, we are saying goodbye to our friend and colleague Sabina. We wish you all the best for your future and looking forward to see you around in Tübingen 😊

🔬Thank you for the nice talks and discussions at @GesVirologie in #Vienna!

HIV-1 Vpr Functions in Primary CD4+ T Cells HIV-1 encodes four accesory proteins in addition to its structural and regulatory genes. Uniquely amongst them, Vpr is abundantly present within virions, meaning it is poised to exert various biological effects on the host cell upon delivery. In this way, Vpr contributes towards the establishment of a successful infection, as evidenced by the extent to which HIV-1 depends on this factor to achieve full pathogenicity in vivo. Although HIV infects various cell types in the host organism, CD4+ T cells are preferentially targeted since they are highly permissive towards productive infection, concomitantly bringing about the hallmark immune dysfunction that accompanies HIV-1 spread. The last several decades have seen unprecedented progress in unraveling the activities Vpr possesses in the host cell at the molecular scale, increasingly underscoring the importance of this viral component. Nevertheless, it remains controversial whether some of these advances bear in vivo relevance, since commonly employed cellular models significantly differ from primary T lymphocytes. One prominent example is the “established” ability of Vpr to induce G2 cell cycle arrest, with enigmatic physiological relevance in infected primary T lymphocytes. The objective of this review is to present these discoveries in their biological context to illustrate the mechanisms whereby Vpr supports HIV-1 infection in CD4+ T cells, whilst identifying findings that require validation in physiologically relevant models.

📢A real multitasker: in our latest #Review we are summarizing the variety of #HIV-1 Vpr functions in primary CD4+ T cells
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/16/3/420

Girls Night out on #WomensDay!

🔬Looking forward to seeing you in #Vienna and discussing #Science with you! https://x.com/GesVirologie/status/1762735422977753371