Alexey J. Merz

This paper identifies a β-strand complementation mechanism used by PilC/PilY1 proteins to license type IV filament assembly across diverse systems.

The paper investigates SNARE-mediated ER-Golgi fusion, showing that a specific SNARE topology is required for efficient fusion and that COPII components inhibit fusion by sequestering SNAREs.

The paper identifies septins as AP-3-associated factors in yeast, showing that Cdc11-containing septin assemblies specifically support AP-3-dependent cargo sorting to the vacuole/lysosome.

This paper describes a method to express and purify soluble type IV minor pilins from E. coli and identifies a heterodimeric interaction between PilI and PilJ in Neisseria gonorrhoeae.