B E E g r o u p

Personal Data
 
Date of birth:  11. 04. 1936
Place of birth:  Falkenberg O/S
Nationality:      German

Curriculum Vitae

1948 - 1956  Ruperti - Gymnasium in Mühldorf am Inn
1956 - 1962  Study of Chemistry, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich
1962             Diploma in Chemistry
1965             Dr. rer. nat. “summa cum laude” („Untersuchungen über Aromatisierungsreaktionen bei Steroiden“)
1965 – 1967 Postdoc, MPI for Biochemistry, Munich
1967 – 1968 Honorary Postdoc with H.G. Khorana, Enzyme Research Institute, Madison, Wisconsin, USA (“Enzymology of tRNA”)   
1968 – 1980 Head of an independent research group, MPI for Biochemistry, Munich and Martinsried
1976             Habilitation in Biochemistry (LMU Munich)
1980 – 2003 Appointment as Professor of Biochemistry and Chairman, Institute of Biochemistry, Biocenter, University of Wuerzburg  
1980            Declined an appointment to the Chair of Biochemistry at the VetMed University in Vienna, Austria

Previous Research Topics

Enzymology of RNA; structure & function of viroids; mechanisms of RNA-ligation in eukaryotes; differential expression and identity elements of human tRNAs; autocatalytic RNA cleavage; selenocysteine biosynthesis in mammalia; genes and proteins involved in the pathogenesis of human Fanconi Anemia; structure and function of artificial ribonucleases.

Current Research Topics

* Function of potentially antiviral artificial ribonucleases in cooperation with Profs. Marina A. Zenkova and V.V. Vlassov, Institute for Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine of the Siberian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk. This research is supported since 2003 by fellowships in the Leonhard Euler Program of DAAD (Bonn) for 2 Siberian graduate/Ph.D. students per year (recipient and project coordinator: H.J. Gross). This project “Bees instead of Mice and Rats” replaces vertebrates as experimental animals by honeybees.  
* Biochemistry and molecular biology of the honey bee, with H. Beier & J. Tautz.  
* Cognitive capabilities of the honeybee, with J. Tautz and S. Zhang (Canberra, Australia).

Fellowships and Awards

1973        Visiting Professor, Department of Biology,
                Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA
1980        Adolf Butenandt Lecturer of the Gesellschaft für Biologische Chemie
1980        Elected Member of EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization)
1981        Fellowship for Research in Japan by “Japan Society for the Promotion of Science”  
                Invited Plenary Lecturer: 9. Symposium on Nucleic Acid Chemistry, Tokyo
1983        C.G. Carus-Medal of Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher LEOPOLDINA
1984        Carus-Prize of the City of Schweinfurt
1985        J.K. Parnas-Award of the Polish Biochemical Society
1985        Fellowship of the “Foundation for Promotion of Cancer Research”
                for research at the National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo
1991        Fellowship of the Japanese “Foundation for Promotion of Cancer Research”
                at the National Cancer Center, Biophysics Division, Tokyo (March – April)
1996        Short Term Visiting Scholarship, Nagoya City University, Japan
1997        Invited Lecturer at Symposia at the Tokyo Institute of Technology
                and Chiba Institute of Technology, Tokyo & Chiba, Japan
2003        Invited Plenary Speaker at “The New Frontier in RNA Science – RNA 2003 Kyoto”, Kyoto, Japan
2004        Symposium “Nucleic Acids, Membranes and Signal Transduction” in Honor of Prof. H. G. Khorana, Oct. 20 – 23 (2004), Shujitsu University, Okayama, Japan
                Invited Speaker and Member of the International Organizing Committee
2008        Invited Lecturer at Kobe-, Toyohashi- and Tokyo University  
2009        Invited Lecturer, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China   

Editorial Activities

Since 1985: The only German member of the Advisory Board of “Advances in Virus Research” (Academic Press, NY)
1992 - 2010:  Executive Editor, “Nucleic Acids Research” (Oxford University Press)  
2001 - 2010:  Editor of the Series “Nucleic Acids and Molecular Biology” (Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg)

Selected Publications

G Wengler, G Wengler & HJ Gross (1978): Studies on virus-specific nucleic acids synthesized in vertebrate and mosquito cells infected with flavi-viruses. Virology 89, 423 – 437.  

G Wengler, G Wengler & HJ Gross (1979): Replicative form of Semliki Forest Virus RNA contains an unpaired guanosine. Nature 282, 754-756.

G Wengler, G Wengler & HJ Gross (1982): Terminal sequences of Sindbis virus-specific nucleic acids: Identity in molecules synthesized in vertebrate and insect cells, and characteristic properties of the replicative form RNA. Virology 123, 273-283.

H Beier, M Barciszewska, , G Krupp, R Mitnacht & HJ Gross (1984): UAG readthrough during TMV RNA translation: Isolation and sequence analysis of two tRNAsTyr with suppressor activity from tobacco plants. EMBO J 3, 351-356.

X-Q Wu & HJ Gross (1994): The length and the secondary structure of the D-stem of human selenocysteine tRNA are the major identity determinants for serine phosphorylation. EMBO J. 13, 241-248  

K Breitschopf & HJ Gross (1994): The exchange of the discriminator base A73 for G is alone sufficient to convert human tRNALeu into a serine-acceptor. EMBO J. 13, 3166 - 3169.

R Amberg, T Mizutani, X-Q Wu & HJ Gross (1996): Selenocysteine synthesis in mammalia: an identity switch from tRNASer to tRNASec, J. Mol. Biol. 263, 8-19.

U Weber, H Beier & HJ Gross (1996): Another heritage from the RNA world: self-excision of intron sequences from pre-tRNAs. Nucleic Acids Res. 24, 2212-2219.  

T Reuter, S Herterich, O Bernhard, H Hoehn & HJ Gross (2000): Strong FANCA/FANCG but weak FANCA/FANCC interaction in the yeast 2-hybrid system. Blood, 95, 719 - 720.

T Reuter, S Herterich, O Bernhard & HJ Gross (2003): Anwendung des Hefe- „Two Hybrid“-Systems zur Aufklärung der Funktion der Fanconi-Anämie-Proteine. Medgen Edition 2, 89-95.

NL Mironova, DV Pyshnyi, EM Ivanova, MA Zenkova, HJ Gross & VV Vlassov (2004): Covalently attached oligoribonucleotides induce RNase activity of a short peptide and modulate its base specificity. Nucleic Acids Res. 32, 1928-1936. 

IL Kuznetsova, MA Zenkova, HJ Gross & VV Vlassov (2005): Enhanced RNA cleavage within bulge-loops by an artificial Ribonuclease. Nucleic Acids Res. 33, 1201-1212.

NL Mironova, DV Pyshnyi, DV Stadler, IV Prokudin, YI Boutorine, EM Ivanova, MA Zenkova,HJGross & VV Vlassov (2006): G-specific RNA-cleaving conjugates of short peptides and oligodeoxyribonucleotides.  J. Biomol. Str. Dyn., 23, 591-602.

HJ Gross, M Pahl, A Si, H Zhu, J Tautz, & S Zhang (2009): "Number-Based Visual Generalisation in the Honeybee", PLoS ONE 4; e4263, doi 1371/journal.pone.0004263.

Fedorova AA*, Azzami K*, Ryabchikova EI, Spitsyna YE, Silnikov VN, Ritter W, Gross HJ, Tautz J, Vlassov VV, Beier H, Zenkova MA (2011) Inactivation of a non-enveloped RNA virus by artificial ribonucleases: honey bees and Acute bee paralysis virus as a new experimental model for in vivo antiviral activity assessment. Antiviral Res. 91: 267-277 (* beide Autoren trugen in gleichem Maße zur Publikation bei).

Gross, H.J. (2011) Give me 5…The invention of number five in ancient civilizations. A consequence of our limited inborn numerical competence. Commun. Integr. Biol. 4:1,62-63.

Gross, H.J. (2011) To bee or not to bee, this is the question… The inborn numerical competence of humans and honeybees. Commun. Integr. Biol. 4:5, 594-597.

Gross, H.J. (2012) The magical number four. A biological, historical and mythological enigma. Commun. Integr. Biol. 5:1, 1-2.

Selected major scientific achievements and their references

The first ncRNA:

Long before the concept of regulatory, non-coding ribonucleic acids (ncRNAs) was elaborated, H. J. Gross and his group at the MPI for Biochemistry in Martinsried were the very first to establish the primary sequence and the secondary structure of a ncRNA which caused dramatic biological effects: the RNA genome of Potato Spindle Tuber Viroid, PSTVd, the first pathogen of a eukaryotic organism for which the complete molecular structure has been established and at that time the first single-stranded, circular RNA known so far. This RNA of 359 nucleotides does not encode a protein and depends completely on host enzymes for replication and circularization and causes its strong disease symptoms by a direct interaction with host components:
HJ Gross, H Domdey, C Lossow, P Jank, M Raba, H Alberty & HL Sänger (1978):  “Nucleotide Sequence and Secondary Structure of Potato Spindle Tuber Viroid”, Nature 273, 203 – 208.   
Author´s contributions: HJG as principal investigator initiated, planned and designed the project and wrote the paper together with HD. Sequence analysis was performed by HD, CL, PJ, MR and HA. The RNA was provided by HLS.

Related publications:

HJ Gross (1985): “Viroids: Their structure and possible origin” in Subviral pathogens of plants and animals: Viroids and prions, K Maramorosch and JJ McKelvey, Eds., Academic Press, New York, pp 165 – 182.
D Riesner & HJ Gross (1985): Viroids. Ann. Rev. Biochem. 54, 531 – 564.
HJ Gross (1990): Viroide: Infektiöse Nucleinsäuren bei Pflanzen. Nova Acta Leopoldina 63, 181 – 191.



The cover of Nature, Issue 5659: “The complete structure of a viroid”: Symptoms of PSTVd infection. Left: Healthy tomato. Right: Infected tomato of the same age.  

A novel type of RNA ligase:

Together with Witold Filipowicz, discovery and characterization of a completely new type of RNA ligase in plants which forms 2´-phosphomonoester,3´,5´-phosphodiester bonds at the linkage site. This type of RNA ligase was later shown to be the enzyme which performs the covalent ligation of linear viroid precursors to mature, single-stranded circular viroids.
M Konarska, W Filipowicz, H Domdey & HJ Gross (1981) “Formation of a 2´-phosphomonoester,3´,5´-phosphodiester linkage by a novel RNA ligase in Wheat germ” Nature 293, 112 – 116.
M Konarska, W Filipowicz & HJ Gross (1982) “RNA ligation via 2´-phosphomonoester,3´,5´-phosphodiester linkage: Requirement of 2´,3´-cyclic phosphate termini and involvement of a 5´-hydroxyl polynucleotide kinase” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 79, 1474 – 1478.
Y Kikuchi, K Tyc, W Filipowicz, HL Sänger & HJ Gross (1982) “Circularization of linear viroid RNA via 2´-phosphomonoester,3´,5´-phosphodiester bonds by a novel type of RNA ligase from Wheat germ and Chlamydomonas” Nucleic Acids Res. 10, 7521 – 7529.  
W Filipowicz & HJ Gross ((1984) “RNA ligation in eukaryotes” Trends Biochem. Sci. 9, 68 – 71.