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Staff Profile

Merel Damen

Research Assistant

Background

Current role

Research Assistant in the lab of Tracy Palmer. I am focusing on the Staphylococcus aureus Type VII secretion system.

Academic background

  • Master of Science, Biomedical Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
  • Master of Science, Biomolecular Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
  • Bachelor of Science, Biomedical Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Publications

Damen, M. P. M., Meijers, A. S., Keizer, E. M., Piersma, S. R., Jiménez, C. R., Kuijl, C. P., Bitter, W., & Houben, E. N. G. (2022). The ESX-1 substrate PPE68 has a key function in the ESX-1 mediated secretion in Mycobacterium marinum. mBio, doi.org/10.1128/mbio.02819-22

Damen, M. P. M.*, Phan, T. H. *, Ummels, R., Rubio-Canalejas, A., Bitter, W., & Houben, E. N. G. (2020). Modification of a PE/PPE substrate pair reroutes an Esx substrate pair from the mycobacterial ESX-1 type VII secretion system to the ESX-5 system. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 295(18), 5960–5969. doi.org/10.1074/jbc.RA119.011682

van Winden, V. J. C., Damen, M. P. M., Ummels, R., Bitter, W., & Houben, E. N. G. (2019). Protease domain and transmembrane domain of the type VII secretion mycosin protease determine system-specific functioning in mycobacteria. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 294(13), 4806–4814. doi.org/10.1074/jbc.RA118.007090

Alcock, F. *, Damen, M. P. M. *, Levring, J. *, & Berks, B. C. (2017). In vivo experiments do not support the charge zipper model for Tat translocase assembly. ELife, 6(e30127), 1–13. doi.org/10.7554/eLife.30127

Ates, L. S., Sayes, F., Frigui, W., Ummels, R., Damen, M. P. M., Bottai, D., Behr, M. A., van Heijst, J. W. J., Bitter, W., Majlessi, L., & Brosch, R. (2018). RD5-mediated lack of PE_PGRS and PPE-MPTR export in BCG vaccine strains results in strong reduction of antigenic repertoire but little impact on protection. PLoS Pathogens, 14(6), 1–29. doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1007139

*These authors contributed equally to this work