In the standard SEM image, aggregates of bacterial cells with no visible matrix sit on top of a network of collagen fibrils. In the cryo image, interconnected aggregates are covered with a smooth coat of matrix, and no collagen is visible - it is under the aggregates, and the only tissue structures visible are patches of elastin fibres.

If you check out my lab's recent work, you'll notice how much biofilm structure is destroyed by dehydration & vacuum during standard scanning electron microscopy. These are both images of P. aeruginosa PA14 #biofilm on pig lung tissue at 48h p.i: using cryoSEM retains the biofilm matrix. #MicroSky

#OnThisDay in 1938, American evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis was born. Margulis is most known for developing and popularising the endosymbiotic theory, which explains how eukaryotic cells evolved organelles from simpler prokaryotic organisms that resided within another and became incorporated.

Catch Prof Alain Filloux, SCELSE Centre Director at Nanyang Technological University Singapore, as an invited speaker at the Cold Spring Harbor Asia conference on Bacterial Infection & Host Defense, 11–15 May 2026 in Suzhou, China. Register - www.csh-asia.org?content/2975 @fillouxlab.bsky.social

The role of microbial genomics in delivering the UK’s national action plan for confronting antimicrobial resistance 2024–29 Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major threat to human and animal health, in addition to environmental resilience. Countries set the agenda on thei…

Are you interested in how your genomics work can meaningfully feed into addressing the UK National Action Plan on AMR? 🧬🧫 🦠💊 Then check out our handy personal view out today in Lancet Microbe … 🧵1/n
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

SCELSE-NTU’s Dr Haris Antypas and Prof Kimberly Kline (UNIGE) show that silencing bacterial communication may worsen infectious endocarditis. Published in Nature Communications, the study finds that when Enterococcus faecalis loses quorum sensing, it forms larger biofilms linked to poorer outcomes.

New in JB: Smith, Unnikrishnan et al. connect daptomycin sensitivity to the staphylococcal type VII secretion system protein EsxC via changes in the membrane, linking pathogenesis to Abx sensitivity.
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
@asm.org #JBacteriology

Poster of the 2026 CSHA meeting on Bacterial Infection & Host Defense.

Please join us for the Cold Spring Harbor Asia @cshlnews.bsky.social meeting on Bacterial Infection & Host Defense this May 11-15 in Suzhou, China! We have a fantastic lineup of speakers. Abstract deadline is March 6. Hope to see you there!

Bacterial entrapment of a fungal carbon repressor prevents plant colonization Xu et al. demonstrate that diverse bacteria trap the carbon repressor CreA in the nucleus, thereby suppressing pathogenesis-related gene expression. This reveals a conserved bacterial strategy that ex...

Bacterial entrapment protects plants from fungi

Diverse bacteria trap fungal carbon repressor CreA in nucleus, suppressing pathogenesis-related gene expression. Consortium of CreA-targeting bacteria confers broad-spectrum resistance in field trials
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

Beautiful, now I can retire 😁

SNIPE is a widespread bacterial defence system that exploits the spatial organization of phage genome injection to specifically target viral DNA, distinguishing self from non-self in prokaryotic immune systems @nature.com @mitpress.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Ecology-guided Bacillus SynCom from a rice–duckweed core reveals division of labor for concurrent growth promotion and sheath blight suppression - Microbiome Background Ecologically derived synthetic communities can provide robust plant benefits, yet generalizable rules for assembling multifunctional consortia remain limited. We hypothesized that a “top-do...

Ecology-guided Bacillus SynCom from a rice–duckweed core reveals division of labor for concurrent growth promotion and sheath blight suppression

-in Microbiome

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Job opening for Research Group Leader in Structural Studies at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, focusing on macromolecular structures.

Are you a structural biologist pushing the boundaries of molecular science with an ambitious research programme?
Join our Structural Studies Division as a tenure-track Group Leader, with core funding, world-leading facilities & enthusiastic colleagues.
Apply by 16 MAR
www.nature.com/naturecareer...

Structural mechanism and inhibitor discovery for DhhP, a Borrelia burgdorferi cyclic di-AMP phosphodiesterase with an Fe/Mn bimetallic center Klima et al. report the crystal structure of DhhP, a cyclic di-AMP phosphodiesterase of Borrelia. The structure reveals atomic details of the heterobimetallic active site and the overall asymmetry of ...

🫳 For c-di-AMP aficionados: Structural mechanism and inhibitor discovery for DhhP, a Borrelia burgdorferi cyclic di-AMP phosphodiesterase with an Fe/Mn bimetallic center!

In

👇

Structure www.cell.com/structure/fu...

@structure

Looking for a truly unique PhD programme on RNA drugs and therapeutics? We have just opened the call for the second cohort of RNAmed-Future leaders in RNA-based medicine. More details under www.rnamed.de Please spread the word.

JB Editor's Pick: Iglesias, Mongiardini et al. show that loss of the Tad pili of B. diazoefficiens results in enhanced biofilm formation - they propose a regulatory role, perhaps via cdG, for Tad impacting biofilms in this bug.
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
@asm.org #JBacteriology

The Origins of Agar First introduced into laboratories in 1881, agar remains indispensable as a culture medium.

The origins of agar
www.asimov.press/p/agar

I had the fun opportunity to write a Commentary for a JB paper by Bhattarai, Harshey et al. describing their Texas Two-Step model of cdG-mediated motility control.
Commentary: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41705806/
Paper: journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
@asm.org #JBacteriology

I am running the best foot forward virtual run 100 km @scelse.bsky.social If you want to support and donate for my campaign check this link bff.ntu.edu.sg/donate!P0018...
Every little bit help. Thank you

Picture of delicious Darwin birthday cake!

Graduate students celebrating Darwin’s 217th birthday in class! 🎂🎉🎊

We celebrated Charles Darwin’s 217th birthday in our UCLA EEB 200b Evolution graduate class today! We are reading On the Origin of Species and it is been great fun!! Happy birthday Chuck! 🌿🧪🌎

Spatial structure: shaping the ecology and evolution of microbial communities Spatial structure naturally emerges in microbial communities, shaping growth, interactions, and evolution, and revealing how microscale processes scale up

Most microbes don't live in shaking flasks; spatial structure shapes how microbes interact and evolve at every scale, as we discuss in our recent review @jeroenmeijer.bsky.social @simonvanvliet.bsky.social @bedutilh.bsky.social @bramvandijk.bsky.social and others
academic.oup.com/femsre/artic... 🧵👇

New in JB: Wang, Liu et al. review the role and regulation of type VI secretion system of the marine V. parahaemolyticus during pathogenesis.
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
@asm.org #JBacteriology

Latest work! 🧬

We uncover how evolution of translation initiation factor 2 (IF2) extensions links translation to bacterial stress response. We map 7 structural architectures & show how terminal extensions are enriched in intrinsic disorder & phase-separation features.

Link: doi.org/10.64898/202...

Advancing regulatory variant effect prediction with AlphaGenome - Nature AlphaGenome, a deep learning model that inputs 1-Mb DNA sequence to predict functional genomic tracks at single-base resolution across diverse modalities, outperforms existing models in variant effect...

AlphaGenome is out! Input 1 Mb DNA -> predict gene expression, transcription initiation, chromatin accessibility, histone modifications, transcription factor binding, chromatin contact maps, ..., up to single-base-pair resolution! Trained on human and mouse data 🧪🧬🖥️🦠✨
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Happy International Day for Women and Girls in Science! @mcmasteriidr.bsky.social @mcmasternexus.bsky.social @mcmasteruniversity.bsky.social

Addendum: ESKAPE pathogens rapidly develop resistance against antibiotics in development in vitro Nature Microbiology, Published online: 06 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s41564-026-02267-wAddendum: ESKAPE pathogens rapidly develop resistance against antibiotics in development in vitro

ICYMI Out Now! Addendum: ESKAPE pathogens rapidly develop resistance against antibiotics in development in vitro #MicroSky

Activation of the envelope stress-responsive two-component system AmgRS compensates for depletion of the essential lipoprotein signal peptidase LspA in Pseudomonas aeruginosa Bacterial lipoproteins play crucial roles in cell envelope biogenesis, signaling, transport, and virulence, making the enzymes responsible for their m…

Activation of the envelope stress-responsive two-component system AmgRS compensates for depletion of the essential lipoprotein signal peptidase LspA in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

#microsky

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I am so glad that I could participate to a race after 2 years of dealing with injuries. Best food forward NTU campus run with the @scelse.bsky.social IDMxS team. 7 km in 42'42", not exceptional but it feels so good to be a finisher again. With Stefan Wuertz we were the old guard in action.

Insights into the molecular determinants of host specificity in Pseudomonas aeruginosa-infecting phages: a structural and functional analysis of tail fibre proteins - BMC Biology Background Bacteriophages and bacteria frequently occupy the same ecological niches, driving complex and dynamic host–virus interactions. In Pseudomonas aeruginosa, phages from the Migulavirinae subfa...

When we think about host-pathogen interactions we often forget about the fact, bacteria can be the hosts too! This study looks into the molecular basis of host specificity in Litunavirus and Luzseptimavirus phages
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
#BMCBiology #MicroSky #ViroSky🦠 🧪

Amazing findings in geometry-based immune activation! Two bacterial defence systems detect phage-encoded ring oligomers, assemble high-order molecular complexes, and trigger abortive infection.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New in JB: Bange, Dornes, et al. review the molecular basis for flagellar patterns and numbers across bacterial species.
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
@asm.org #JBacteriology