Daniël Huitema

As part of my PhD research within iCNS, I study proteins in post-mortem human brain tissue. Proteins are the workhorses of our cells: they determine how brain cells function and what goes wrong in disease. Using mass spectrometry and chemical biology methods, I profile these proteins on a large scale. In doing so, I add an additional layer of information to the multi-omics approach, which integrates data on DNA, RNA and proteins, among other things, into a coherent picture of the brain.

Within the Baggelaar lab in Utrecht, we focus on a specific chemical modification of proteins: S-acylation. In this process, a fatty acid is attached to a cysteine residue in a protein. This lipid tail acts as an anchor: it alters the protein’s properties, determines where it is located within the cell, and thereby influences its function. Because this modification is reversible, cells can use it as a switch to turn proteins on and off. By mapping which proteins in the human brain are modified in this way, we aim to better understand how brain cells function and what changes in neurological disorders.

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