Miranda

🦠Orthohantaviruses are an emerging zoonotic threat in Europe. New research finds that the virus restructures the cytoskeleton and P bodies in human cells, potentially to form 'viral factories'. Read the full article by following the link🔗 https://doi.org/10.1099/jgv.0.002220

Lysine-11 ubiquitination drives type-I/III interferon induction by cGAS–STING and Toll-like receptors 3 and 4 - Nature Cell Biology Betrancourt, Cinko et al. identify ANKIB1-mediated K11 ubiquitination and OPTN recruitment as a shared mechanism for driving immune signalling by cGAS, TLR3 and TLR4, with functional relevance in inte...

Congratulations to the Walczak lab for this amazing piece of work just pulisbed on @natcellbio.nature.com
A must read!!!
This work adds a new letter of the ubiquitin code to immune signaling regulations!

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

Nice to be a part of this excellent study from the Walczak lab where K11 ubiquitin chains added by ANKIB1 are identified as being essential for TBK1-IRF3-driven interferon production downstream of pattern recognition receptors including TLR3 and cGAS. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Dynamics of natural selection preceding human viral epidemics and pandemics Using a phylogenetic framework to characterize natural selection, we investigate the hypothesis that zoonotic viruses require adaptation prior to zoon…

There's a common misconception that zoonotic viruses require significant adaptation to jump from animals to cause human epidemics.

Not so 👇.

Further, we see clear signs of 1977 flu experiencing cell passage, prior to epidemic.

SARS-CoV-2? Business as usual.

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

@nitzantal.bsky.social @romihadary.bsky.social @soreklab.bsky.social use structure prediction and in silico binding site analysis to discover viral immune evasion proteins! Exciting for our lab @reneechang.bsky.social @riveralopz.bsky.social to help with this project.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Out today: We discovered new viral proteins that target immune signaling molecules, solely based on their AlphaFold-predicted shapes

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Congrats Nitzan Tal and coauthors! Thank you Kranzusch lab for the fun collaboration!

Linking below previous thread on our findings

After >10 years of our lab studying bacterial cGAS-like enzymes, @hobbslabutah.bsky.social finally reconstitutes viral sensing in vitro and discovers how these ancient receptors sense phage protease enzymes to detect virion assembly and activate antiviral immunity

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

CBASS is a cyclic nucleotide-based antiviral system in bacteria that is related to cGAS-STING signaling in animals. One of the big questions is how CBASS is activated during phage infection? We made some progress on this during my final year in the Kranzusch lab.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A phylogenetic tree of insects is shown annotating the presence or absence of a an antimicrobial peptide gene across winged insects

Various phylogenetic secondary loss events are mapped to a tree of insects to explain the parsimony calculations necessary to explain the diversity of insect Drosomycin antimicrobial peptide genes

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are key defence molecules of the innate immune system of plants and animals. Understanding the evolutionary origins of AMPs can help to explain how immune systems acquire novelty and vary in their defensive capabilities. However, AMPs evolve rapidly, and so the origins of similar AMPs across organisms is often unclear. Furthermore, false negatives due to low search sensitivity are common and can hinder confident annotations about true absences. Due to these difficulties, understanding whether similar AMP genes found in diverse organisms represent ancestral molecules or evolutionary novelties has been challenging. In this report, we present evidence of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) of the antifungal peptide gene Drosomycin across insects. We show that in Diptera, the presence of Drosomycin is restricted to the Melanogaster group and additionally the distant relative Drosophila busckii. We go on to recover Drosomycin genes in cockroaches (Blattodea), mantises (Mantodea), one katydid (Orthoptera), various beetles (Coleoptera), and a recently acquired pseudogenized Drosomycin locus in Liposcelis booklice (Psocodea), but no other insects. Explaining this diversity through shared ancestry requires at least 50 independent loss events, or just seven HGT events. Previous studies have suggested that similar AMPs found across divergent species reflect conservation from a common ancestor, or due to their small size, that they arose via convergent evolution resulting from pathogen-imposed selection. Our findings suggest horizontal gene transfer can be responsible for the presence of some AMP genes found scattered across the tree of life. By presenting a mechanism through which immune systems can acquire novelty, our study also suggests a possible explanation for certain lineage-specific competencies for defence against infectious disease. While loss of AMP genes is common in certain lineages, here we suggest gain of AMPs can occur just as suddenly.

Pleased to finally share this fun collab that began at #Ento23

@cedricaumont.bsky.social presented & I had seen NCBI annotated some cockroach genomes as "contaminated." Turns out NCBI & I were wrong (much more fun).

Horizontal transfer of an #AntimicrobialPeptide across insects
bit.ly/DrsHGT

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Toll-like receptor signaling outcome is determined by the stoichiometry of the endogenous TRIFosome A previously entirely unknown mode of TLR signal transduction is elucidated.

#MysterySolved! Wellcome to the #TRIFosome! Kudos to @clarebryant.bsky.social & friends for visualizing filamentous TRIF @ Science Advances & showing that a supramolecular organizing center #SMOC is required for NfKB, not TBK1, signaling!! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Deltaviruses spread through a viral Trojan Horse Hepatitis D-like satellite viruses, known as deltaviruses, have been recently discovered in a wide range of animals. These viruses are thought to expr…

The Trojan Horse is real, and it’s microscopic! 🐴🦠
Our paper is out today in @cellcellpress.bsky.social!
We discovered that deltaviruses physically hide INSIDE helper viruses to sneak into new cells. And to prove it, we had to image them from every angle. 🧵👇

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

New study shows that virus prevalence in multispecies #BeeCommunities is shaped by the identity of key host species and the structure of their interaction networks, with implications for #DiseaseEcology. 🐝🦠#Ecology #NetworkScience
📄 https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.70327
👤 EVBC member: Robert Paxton

After 3 years, I’m very happy to share my postdoc work which has been published in @natcomms.nature.com 🎉

doi.org/10.1038/s414...

✨ Thank you @arhelnathalie.bsky.social for your guidance and support !

#influenza #NPC #RANBP2 #Nup358 #Inflammation #ANE #AcuteNecrotizingEncephalopathy
#virology

A 3x3 grid of coloured images of influenza virus particles in the style of an Andy Warhol screen print. Image credit Naina Nair / Ed Hutchinson (MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research)

🚨New Influenza Tool🚨
Interested in IAV mutations?
Looking for markers of mammalian adaptation?
Frustrated by converting between IAV numbering systems?
The #Flu-MutationExplorer, a new tool from @cvrbioinfo.bsky.social and @royalvetcollege.bsky.social, is here to help:
flu-gdb.cvr.gla.ac.uk
(1/n)

Climate change in the WHO Pandemic Agreement negotiations: a qualitative study. Graph shows the evolution of different topics over different articles.

NEW PREPRINT! 🦠⚖️🌡️ The Pandemic Agreement is the first global health treaty to name climate change, and behind the scenes, the UNFCCC was a source of both inspiration and conflict. Cristina Arnés-Sanz and team tracked climate issues through three years of negotiations: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Animal organoids as transformative platforms for viral infections and zoonotic cross-species viral research | Journal of Virology As obligate intracellular parasites that rely on host cellular machinery for replication, viruses recall appropriate experimental models for elucidating virus-host interactions and pathogenic mechanisms. Traditionally, virology research has relied on two principal approaches: two-dimensional (2D) cell monolayers and in vivo animal models. Each methodology has contributed substantially to fundamental understanding of viral biology and pathogenesis, while presenting significant methodological constraints that would limit their translational relevance.

Animal organoids as transformative platforms for viral infections and zoonotic cross-species viral research journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Things I learned today:
The same genetic variant that protects against norovirus, also protects against rotavirus!
Protective SNP went up in frequency over last 8.5kya in Europe & Asia
We know cows & pigs have their own rotavirus species...
doi.org/10.1016/j.co...

Twitter mentions Friday 6 February: 17,947 posts Bluesky, same timeframe: 24,512 posts

Since we have 2 months of 2026 data now, we can see if the trend we saw last year holds up: does research from the current year get shared more on Bluesky or X-Twitter?

As you can see here, we still see days regularly where Bluesky's volume of research sharing is markedly higher than Twitter.

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Diversity and ecological roles of hidden viral players in groundwater microbiomes - Nature Communications Groundwater viruses are less well studied. Here, using large-scale sequencing, the authors uncover extensive, largely uncharacterized viral diversity in groundwater, showing that viruses infect domina...

New paper from @adjiep.bsky.social on viral impacts in groundwater at Nature Comms. Congratulations Adjie and team!

Read: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#viruses #viromics #groundwater

Silent reservoir species are shaping the emergence of Usutu virus - Nature Ecology & Evolution By collating molecular, serological and population data from multiple wildlife surveillance schemes, this paper demonstrates that host species other than the most-affected and sentinel blackbird speci...

Molecular, serological and population data from multiple wildlife surveillance schemes demonstrates that host species other than the most-affected and sentinel blackbird species must be involved in the transmission of Usutu virus in the Netherlands 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Social media highlights the overlooked impact of cats on arthropods The impact of domestic cats on vertebrate biodiversity is unequivocal; however, we still know little about their effects on arthropods. By analysing over 17,000 photos and videos from social media p...

For those of you who have (like me) watched cats batting at moths around your traps, this might be of interest. Or alternatively, not at all unexpected. #TeamMoth

resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Holy cow! Our new study showing that H5 mRNA-LNP vaccines are safe and effective in lactating dairy cows is now posted on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social!

We found that our vaccine elicits protective responses in 2,000 pound dairy cows! 1/

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Control of retrotransposon-driven activation of the interferon response by the double-stranded RNA binding protein DGCR8 Abstract. The type I interferon (IFN) response is the main innate immune pathway against viruses in mammals. This pathway must be tightly regulated to prev

I'm so happy to share our latest paper! Now out in @narjournal.bsky.social 🥳

Did you know that transposable elements embedded in mRNAs can form dsRNA and activate innate immunity? 🧬🦠 Have a look! academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

#TEsky #RNAsky #RNAbiology #immunity #NAR

Influence of Carbon Dioxide and pH on Influenza Virus in Sessile Saliva Droplets Upon exhalation, virus-laden respiratory droplets experience rapid changes in environmental conditions that lead to chemical and physical alterations that can affect virus infectivity. By manipulating...

There has been a lot of interesting research on the pH of respiratory droplets and how it affects flu virus. We looked at large saliva droplets exposed to low and high CO2 and only saw a difference in viability at 80% RH with low CO2. pH changes were small.
pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

A cellular basis for the mammalian nocturnal-diurnal switch Early mammals were nocturnal while dinosaurs dominated the daytime. Mammalian transition to daytime activity accelerated after the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, but the underlying mechanisms remain...

Since I moved to @mrclmb.bsky.social I’ve been trying to answer this: Why are some mammals active at night and others in the day? Today our answer is out @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/....
If you’re interested in circadian biology, evolution or how timing shapes physiology, take a look

Illustration of the framework’s structure. Users can specify primary classes and secondary classes across both static and motion video streams (a–f). The right panel shows examples of static and color-from-motion frames from case studies. The color-from-motion trails create characteristic patterns that reveal movement and behavior. The grass moth (Crambidae) is nearly undetectable from still frames due to its color, and motion blur, but it is highly salient in the motion stream (g). The semaphore fly (Poecilobothrus nobilitatus) example shows how motion information can easily disentangle behaviors that are often identical from static frames (e.g., “fly” and “display” appear identical in the static frame, but different in motion). This example also showcases hierarchical classification, with secondary classifiers determining the sex of the flies (h). Sea slaters (Ligia oceanica) are highly camouflaged when static, and salient when moving, resulting in motion models that make far fewer errors (but cannot detect stationary individuals) (i). Human sperm have been classified based on their swimming movement with either symmetric (typically resulting in fast, straight movement), asymmetric (typically resulting in slow, circling, exploratory movement), or weak (twitching, vibrating etc…) strategies. These swimming strategies can be determined without tracking individuals, which is difficult in complex, debris-filled videos (j).

Despite advances, quantifying complex motion info remains challenging. @jtroscianko.bsky.social @kevinjgaston.bsky.social &co present BehaveAI, a #video analysis tool that sees motion as color, tracking animals & classifying #behavior in complex natural scenes @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4kTF1wX

A STING signaling pathway that inhibits DNA virus replication is also protective against RNA viruses, forming spillover barrier against influenza
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
@science.org

Pace of ecology drives the tempo of visual perception across the animal kingdom - Nature Ecology & Evolution Using phylogenetic comparative methods across 237 species from disparate phyla, the authors show that species with fast-paced ecologies have higher temporal resolution of perception.

Pace of ecology drives the tempo of visual perception across the animal kingdom www.nature.com/articles/s41... - new paper with Clinton Haarlem, Cliodhna Hynes and colleagues

Different species see the world as fast as they need to...

Sweets from Paris

Was great to have @adeczkowska.bsky.social here, who delivered science & sweets from @aleksdelab.bsky.social of @pasteur.fr. Even more: She pointed out this stimulating essay by Ruslan Medzhitov on the balance of knowledge in immunology: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪 @natrevimmunol.nature.com

Should biology put complexity first? The dictum “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler” poses a problem for biology. How simply can it be told without doing dama…

Should biology put complexity first? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... - excellent essay by @philipcball.bsky.social. I would add epistasis to polygenicity and pleiotropy as a ubiquitous and fundamental phenomenon, not some optional complication that we can try to account for afterwards