🚨Preprint! Happy to share the research from my PhD “Genome delivery of a contractile tailed phage and its superinfection exclusion mechanism”. We use cryoEM to study the genome ejection of the phage T4, revealing how the tape measure protein regulates the process.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Checkout our latest preprint which is a real lab-wide effort to map antibiotic stress signatures across the pneumococcal pangenome. All findings have also been incorporated in PneumoBrowse 2.0.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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
@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/...
Tree drawn within the iTOL interface generated by LINtree. The tree is annotated with LIN codes and clonal complexes in different colours.
LINvis displays datasets of LIN codes as a series of hierarchical packed circles.
BIGSdb v1.52.1 has been released. This adds 2 new plugins for LIN code visualisation - LINtree (@giphy-ip.bsky.social) and LINvis. See github.com/kjolley/BIGS... for release notes. BIGSdb powers all the databases at @pubmlst.org and BIGSdb Pasteur.
Please RT:📢We are hiring a Post-Doc in Structural Biology to join our multidisciplinary team.
Project: study molecular mechanisms of horizontal gene transfer using cryo-EM and integrative structural biology.
Apply: shorturl.at/ecrVL
#StructuralBiology #CryoEM #Postdoc
New post-doctoral research position in my phage-host interactions (Phi) laboratory in @otagomicroimmuno.bsky.social at @universityofotago.bsky.social New Zealand. The project is focused on defences against jumbo phages. Please share and if interested apply using the link in the comments.
This is the first time we observed bacteria use plasmolysis to defence against phages! biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Thanks all the authors to discover this together! @fnobrega.bsky.social Zhiying @garushyants.bsky.social Dinshaw and Eugene
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past two years thinking about genome evolution and how recent research revealing complex gene-gene interactions has complicated traditional ‘gene-centric’ genomic approaches to evolution. So here is a review that consolidates these thoughts!
rdcu.be/e6pHY
MBE | The role of society journals in protecting the scientific record
MBE Editors-in-Chief Claudia Russo and Brandon Gaut publish a new editorial on the role of society journals in protecting the scientific record.
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag022
#evobio #molbio #societyjournal
@claurusso.bsky.social @bsgaut.bsky.social
#microsky #phage #phagesky
With whom do they exchange? P4 tend to exchange with other P4 and P2 with other P2. But there are also exchanges with other elements like plasmids and phages. Surprisingly, we couldn't find exchanges between P2 and P4. Hence, these satellites do not exchange anti-phage functions with their helpers.
What are the consequences? We observe lots of novel defence systems, especially chimeras, suggesting that recombination hotspots of P2 and P4 constantly generate novel systems (we experimentally confirmed the function of more than a dozen).
How do they vary? They seem to vary by recombination. The data suggests that anti-phage systems are swapped by recombination even before being inactivated. The mechanisms driving their rapid genetic mobility remain mysterious (stay tuned).
How quickly do anti-phage systems vary? They vary very quickly; P2/P4 strictly identical at the core genes usually have non-homologous systems. Hence, bacterial defences vary because the MGEs carrying them have high chromosomal turnover, and because their anti-phage systems vary even faster.
Fantastic collaboration w/ @dbikard.bsky.social @audeber.bsky.social @rayanchikhi.bsky.social labs led by @jmouradesousa.bsky.social : We assessed the rates of variation of anti-phage systems in P4-like satellites and P2 helper phages. Quick conclusion: Huge variation! We focus on 4 key questions/5
Join us at UCL @ugiatucl.bsky.social @ucllifesciences.bsky.social 👇🧵
Picture J. Zakany
Vendredi prochain 6 mars à 10h, début de mon cours 2026 @college-de-france.fr. Les relations conflictuelles entre les variations de l’ADN et l’évolution des structures🤓 L’ADN; cause proximale ou cause ultime? 🤔 Entrée libre, sortie libre! Amis Parisiens, 🙏RT 🤘
New paper alert: Paralog interference contributes to the preservation of genetic redundancy www.cell.com/current-biol...
In case you missed it: our review titled "Spatial structure: shaping the ecology and evolution of microbial communities" is out! 🚨
Let me hit you with some highlights on why spatial structure matters. (and why you should care!)
Sharing is appreciated 🙏 🧵👇
doi.org/10.1093/fems...
🧵 Proud to present a tour de force by postdoc @gregbwhitfield.bsky.social solving the mystery of how bacterial Tad pili can extend and retract with a single motor ATPase. Great collaboration with Lynne Howell, @dr-lori-burrows.bsky.social, @ianyyen.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
We tested all the other type IV filament system motors and the only other one to adopt both orientations was the archael Epd pilus. This matches the nice work from @epcrocha.bsky.social showing that Tad pili were inherited from Archaea.
🔬 New work from the Mazel Lab engineers programmable conjugative plasmids to selectively target MDR bacteria and the resistance plasmid pOXA-48, blocking its spread in complex communities.
✍️ @amazeld.bsky.social & coll. @pasteur.fr
📖 shorturl.at/GZdJu
#MicroSky #AntibioticResistance #Conjugation
New preprint out on bioRxiv!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Can conjugative plasmids be used to control plasmid and pathogen spread?
Follow me down the rabbit hole that led to this story 🧵
Working on a 🧵 Bacterial Tad pili extend
and retract pili using a single motor ATPase with a unidirectional catalytic mechanism. We find that the Tad motor achieves bidirectionality by physical inversion; alternating which face of the ATPase toroid engages the IM platform complex. #microsky
Yet another awesome single-phage paper from Ido Golding's lab #phagesky
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Next one in a storm of preprints from our lab's amazing scientists.. Recent-ex-postdoc, #newPI @cathyhernandez.bsky.social studied thermal ecology of marine bacteria isolated near New Haven. Turns out, response of this bacterium to temperatures is shaped by prophages!
#phagesky #microsky
New pre-print with @wtmatlock.bsky.social!!!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
What shapes the distribution of plasmids across bacteria? Our paper shows that conjugative plasmids actually have a very narrow distribution compared to mobilizable plasmids. Conjugative systems restrict plasmid transfer!
I don't think that the reviewers asking me for higher animal numbers really understand how many 40 goats are. Do you know the CHAOS that comes with dealing with 40 GOATS in an experimental setting!
Mice people cannot comprehend.
3 goats alone ate a tarp, a clock, and 2 expensive accelerometers!
New preprint out! Anjali Sapre, Melissa Martin and co. mapped the evolutionary routes of convergence in K pneumo. Pop analysis of >1,400 global genomes & 7,500 closed plasmids to see how #AMR & virulence genes come together and impact phenotypes. www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-8...
