Elena Cabezón Navarro (IP)

  • IBBTEC. Albert Einstein, 22. 39011 Santander
  • elena.cabezon@unican.es
  • 942 202033
  • Molecular Motors in Nanobiotechnology
  • Principal Investigator
  • Structural Biology
  • Department of Microbiology & Genomics

As a Principal Investigator (PI), I run a research group at the Instituto de Biomedicina y Biotecnología de Cantabria (IBBTEC), called "Molecular motors in Nanobiotecnología" (https://web.unican.es/ibbtec/Paginas/Groups/Cabezon.aspx). I am also Deputy Director of the IBBTEC since 2016 and Professor at the University of Cantabria since 2009.

B.Sc & M.Sc in Biochemistry (Academic Achievement Award), Universidad del País Vasco (UPV/EHU), and Ph.D. in Molecular Biology, Universidad de Cantabria (UC). In 1997, I joined John Walker´s group at the LMB (Medical Research Council, Cambridge, UK), just a few months before he got the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. I was supported by an EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Marie Curie Research Grant during the first years and then I continued my work as a Research Associate, until 2002. My work was focused on the inhibitor protein of mitochondrial F-ATPase. In 2002, I came back to Spain as a group leader with a Ramón & Cajal contract and I became Associate Professor in 2005.  Since then, my work has been focused on molecular motors. I seek to understand their mechanism by using biochemical and structural approaches, with a special interest in recent advances in nanobiotechnology. In my scientific career, I have 32 publications, many of them in high impact scientific journals, such as Nature, EMBO Journal, PNAs, Nature Structural Biology, etc. as well as a patent. My research work has been funded by several Research Grants from public competitive calls and I have supervised six Ph.D students. As management tasks, I am a member of some international Committees, such as Faculty of 1000 and, in addition to the Deputy Direction of the IBBTEC, I have also been selected as a member of several committees at the UC, such as The  University Research Committee, The Doctoral Program Committee or The PhD Awards Committee.

​Molecular Motors in Nanobiotechnology


Research interests

  • Structural and biochemical approach into the molecular mechanism of RecA/AAA+ motors (ATPases Associated to a large variety of cellular Activities (i.e. DNA unwinding, protein folding, DNA transport…) 
  • Inhibitors of bacterial conjugation to prevent the dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes

  • Protein nanopores for DNA sequencing and susbstrate secretion
  • Electron microscopy of large membrane protein complexes 

Funding

  • Título del proyecto: “Aplicaciones biomédicas y biotecnológicas de motores moleculares implicados en la transferencia de ADN y proteínas a través de membranas biológicas”
    Entidad financiadora:   Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad
    Referencia: BFU2016-78521-R
    Duración:desde 30/12/2016 hasta 29/12/2019
    Investigadores responsables: Dr. Elena Cabezón e Ignacio Arechaga

  • Título del proyecto: "Aplicación de un motor que transloca ssDNA en plataformas de secuenciación de tercera generación"
    Entidad financiadora: Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad
    Referencia: BFU2014-61823-EXP
    Duración: desde 01/09/2015 hasta 31/08/2017
    Investigador responsable: Dr. Elena Cabezón

  • Título del proyecto: "Morfogénesis de membranas bacterianas y mitocondriales: en busca del eslabón perdido"

    Entidad financiadora: Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad 

    Referencia : BFU2013_49486-EXP

    Duración: 2014-2016

    Investigador responsable: Dr. Ignacio Arechaga

  • Título del proyecto: "Mecanismos moleculares y evolutivos en motores moleculares que translocan ADN y proteínas"

    Entidad financiadora: Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad

    Referencia: BFU2011-22874

    Duración:desde 01/01/2012 hasta 31/12/2015 

    Investigador responsable: Dr. Elena Cabezón

Primary architecture and energy requirements of Type III and Type IV secretion systems

Primary architecture and energy requirements of Type III and Type IV secretion systems

Cabezón E, Valenzuela-Gómez F, Arechaga I.

​​Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2023 Nov 27;13:1255852.​

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Nanopore sensing reveals a preferential pathway for the co-translocational unfolding of a conjugative relaxase-DNA complex

Nanopore sensing reveals a preferential pathway for the co-translocational unfolding of a conjugative relaxase-DNA complex

Valenzuela-Gómez F, Arechaga I, Cabezón E.

Nucleic Acids Res. 2023 Jun 2:gkad492. Online ahead of print.​​

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Monitoring Bacterial Conjugation by Optical Microscopy

Monitoring Bacterial Conjugation by Optical Microscopy

Carranza G, Menguiano T, Valenzuela-Gómez F, García-Cazorla Y, Cabezón E, Arechaga I.

Front Microbiol. 2021 Oct 4;12:750200.

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Drug Weaponry to Fight Against SARS-CoV-2

Drug Weaponry to Fight Against SARS-CoV-2

Cabezón E, Arechaga I.

Front Mol Biosci. 2020 Aug 25;7:204.

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Spectrophotometric Assays to Quantify the Activity of T4SS ATPases

Spectrophotometric Assays to Quantify the Activity of T4SS ATPases

Cabezón E, Arechaga I.

​In: de la Cruz, F. (eds) Horizontal Gene Transfer. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2075. Humana, New York, NY., 2019

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The FtsK-like motor TraB is a DNA-dependent ATPase that forms higher-order assemblies

The FtsK-like motor TraB is a DNA-dependent ATPase that forms higher-order assemblies

Amado E, Muth G, Arechaga I, Cabezón E.

​J Biol Chem. 2019 Mar 29;294(13):5050-5059.

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Conjugation inhibitors compete with palmitic acid for binding to the conjugative traffic ATPase TrwD, providing a mechanism to inhibit bacterial conjugation

Conjugation inhibitors compete with palmitic acid for binding to the conjugative traffic ATPase TrwD, providing a mechanism to inhibit bacterial conjugation

García-Cazorla Y, Getino M, Sanabria-Ríos DJ, Carballeira NM, de la Cruz F, Arechaga I, Cabezón E

​J Biol Chem. 2018 Oct 26;293(43):16923-16930. 

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Conjugation Inhibitors and Their Potential Use to Prevent Dissemination of Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Bacteria

Conjugation Inhibitors and Their Potential Use to Prevent Dissemination of Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Bacteria

Cabezón E, de la Cruz F, Arechaga I.

​Front Microbiol. 2017 Nov 30;8:2329. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2017.02329. eCollection 2017.

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Fludarabine resistance mediated by aminoglycoside-3'-phosphotransferase-IIa and the structurally related eukaryotic cAMP-dependent protein kinase

Fludarabine resistance mediated by aminoglycoside-3'-phosphotransferase-IIa and the structurally related eukaryotic cAMP-dependent protein kinase

Sánchez-Carrera D, Bravo-Navas S, Cabezón E, Arechaga I, Cabezas M, Yáñez L, Pipaón C

​FASEB J. 2017 Jul;31(7):3007-3017. doi: 10.1096/fj.201601245R. Epub 2017 Apr 3.

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Substrate translocation involves specific lysine residues of the central channel of the conjugative coupling protein TrwB.

Larrea D, de Paz HD, Matilla I, Guzmán-Herrador DL, Lasso G, de la Cruz F, Cabezón E, Llosa M. ol Genet Genomics. 2017 Jun 8. doi: 10.1007/s00438-017-1331-3. (Epub ahead of print)

[pubmed]

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Type IV traffic ATPase TrwD as molecular target to inhibit bacterial conjugation.

Ripoll-Rozada J, García-Cazorla Y, Getino M, Machón C, Sanabria-Ríos D, de la Cruz F, Cabezón E, Arechaga I. Mol Microbiol. 2016 Jun;100(5):912-21. doi: 10.1111/mmi.13359.

[pubmed]

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Type IV traffic ATPase TrwD as molecular target to inhibit bacterial conjugation.

Ripoll-Rozada J, García-Cazorla Y, Getino M, Machón C, Sanabria-Ríos D, de la Cruz F, Cabezón E, Arechaga I. Mol Microbiol. 2016 Jun;100(5):912-21. doi: 10.1111/mmi.13359. Epub 2016 Mar 22.

[PubMed]

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Towards an integrated model of bacterial conjugation.

Cabezón E, Ripoll-Rozada J, Peña A, de la Cruz F, Arechaga I. FEMS Microbiol Rev. Vol.39:81-95. doi: 10.1111/1574-6976.12085.

 [pubmed]

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Functional interactions of VirB11 traffic ATPases with VirB4 and VirD4 molecular motors in type IV secretion systems.

Ripoll-Rozada J, Zunzunegui S, de la Cruz F, Arechaga I, Cabezón E. J Bacteriol. 2013 Sep;195(18):4195-201. doi: 10.1128/JB.00437-13.

[pubmed]

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The hexameric structure of a conjugative VirB4 protein ATPase provides new insights for a functional and phylogenetic relationship with DNA translocases.

Peña A, Martín-Benito J, Valpuesta JM, Carrascosa JL, de la Cruz F, Cabezón E*, Arechaga I*. J. Biol. Chem. 2012, 287(47), 39925-32. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M112.413849.

[pubmed]

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Regulation of the type IV secretion ATPase TrwD by magnesium: implications for the catalytic mechanism of the secretion ATPase superfamily.

Ripoll-Rozada J, Peña A, Rivas S, Moro F, de la Cruz F, Cabezón E*,Arechaga I* J. Biol. Chem. 2012, 287(21), 17408-14. DOI:10.1074/jbc.M112.357905.

[pubmed]

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Membrane-associated nanomotors form macromolecular transport.

Cabezón E*, Lanza VF, Arechaga I* Curr. Opin. Biotechnol. 2012, 23(4), 537-44. DOI:10.1016/j.copbio.2011.11.031.

​[pubmed]

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Autoinhibitory regulation of TrwK, an essential VirB4 ATPase in type IV secretion systems.

Peña A, Ripoll-Rozada J, Zunzunegui S, Cabezón E, de la Cruz F, Arechaga I* J. Biol. Chem. 2011, 286(19), 17376-82. DOI:10.1074/jbc.M110.208942.

​[pubmed]

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The conjugative DNA translocase TrwB is a structure specific DNA-binding protein.

Matilla I, Alfonso C, Rivas G, Bolt EL, de la Cruz F, Cabezón E* J. Biol. Chem. 2010, 285(23, 17537-44. DOI:10.1074/jbc.M109.084137.

​[pubmed]

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Iñaki Arechaga Iturregui (IP)

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Tamara Menguiano Vázquez

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