The Ubiquitin-like modifier FAT10 in tolerance induction

III I have made the most important discovery of my career, the most important discovery of my life. It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reasons can be found. cited from " A beautiful mind " IV Acknowledgement I would like to express my gratitude to Marcus Groettrup for taking me back with open arms in the lab after failure of the " French adventure " , his constant support and motivation and his insistence on revealing the FAT10 mystery. I'd also like to thank Elisa May for reviewing this thesis and her constant interest in the project as a member of my thesis committee and helpful data discussion. I'm grateful to Hans-Reimer Rodewald for stepping in as an oral examiner. I also want to thank… Michael " Der große Meister " Basler for his constant support, motivation, data discussion, proofreading and sharing his technical expertise on flow cytometry and animal work, also for his puerile humor and extensive scientific discussions about Dr. House, Annette Aichem for providing mass spectrometry data that opened a side project, also for constant technical support and helpful data discussion, Valerie Herrmann for providing exciting data in the context of her master thesis, Nicola Catone, the master purifier, for his help on FAT10 purification, Gunter Schmidtke for providing vectors and helping with protein purification, the group of Ludger Klein for sharing their expertise, especially Martin Aichinger for his advice on TEC isolation and Tomoyoshi Yamano and Ksenija Jovanovic for mouse strains and tissue samples, Bruno Kyewski and Martina Gärtner for providing human tissue samples, Georg Holländer for cell lines, Daniel Pinschewer and Mark S. Anderson for mouse strains, the animal caretakers of the TFA, especially Birgitt, Andrea, Doris and Nicole, for taking care of a whole room of the FAT10-knockout breedings and providing thousands of biopsies, my labmates, especially Sarah and Franzi as a part of the blondie-office, Ulli for her support in the mouse house, and all the others for the nice working atmosphere, the chemical biology graduate school for funding of travel expenses and providing a base for new friendships and collaborations at the university, and my Mom, because she always believed in me. With all my heart, I'd like to thank Martin Möckel, for his constant support, motivation and discussion, as well as technical assistance and food supply. I hope I can make up for this …