José R Penadés's Avatar

José R Penadés

@jrpenades

Frustrated football player, I moved to a less relevant work: microbiologist interested on mobile genetic elements

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13.11.2024
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Latest posts by José R Penadés @jrpenades

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Plasmids promote antimicrobial resistance through insertion sequence-mediated gene inactivation - Nature Microbiology Inactivation of chromosomal genes through plasmid-encoded IS elements is an extended mechanism of antimicrobial resistance evolution in bacteria.

Final version of our last paper is out!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

13.03.2026 11:52 👍 82 🔁 55 💬 6 📌 1

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

03.03.2026 17:39 👍 46 🔁 21 💬 1 📌 1
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Description Please note that job descriptions are not exhaustive, and you may be asked to take on additional duties that align with the key responsibilities ment...

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

04.03.2026 16:24 👍 6 🔁 9 💬 0 📌 0

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

05.03.2026 19:28 👍 103 🔁 49 💬 0 📌 5

How does treatment induced antibiotic resistance happen in real-world infections? We analysed 25k Pseudomonas isolates from 180 patients in a clinical trial to find out! TLDR: The ecological and evolutionary paths are surprisingly diverse & complex even in patients receiving identical treatment…

20.02.2026 16:31 👍 86 🔁 42 💬 3 📌 3
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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…

We found a viral Trojan Horse: a virus can hide inside another virus.This one surprised us: deltaviruses don’t just borrow a helper virus. They can travel inside it.
A literal Trojan Horse “virus-in-a-virus” route into cells. 🤯 Kudos to 1st author @viroscope.bsky.social and co-authors !

06.03.2026 18:29 👍 192 🔁 96 💬 8 📌 14
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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.

04.03.2026 00:20 👍 52 🔁 50 💬 5 📌 2

That being said, we do find that the strength of interactions that CAN be resolved over noise does decline for higher-order interactions. Above third order they cannot be reliably discriminated from empirical noise.

09.03.2026 09:31 👍 5 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Even if higher-order interactions exist biologically and are strong, they will tend to contribute little to the total variance in small landscapes, simply because there are few of them.
Noise amplification and structural constraints severely limit our ability to detect them.

09.03.2026 09:31 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0

New preprint on the limits of detecting higher-order interactions in microbial communities.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
We find that the dominance of additive and pairwise interactions on community function may not reflect biological simplicity, but fundamental limits of statistical detection.

09.03.2026 09:31 👍 101 🔁 54 💬 5 📌 3
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Bacterial defense systems and host ecology drive the evolution of intra-species lineages Staphylococcus aureus lineages vary widely in the frequency of gene exchange and the diversity of genome content. Gorzynski and Harling-Lee et al. show that both host ecology and the horizontal acquis...

Great work by Jamie Gorzynski and Josh-Harling-Lee from the group providing insights into the evolutionary origins of bacterial lineages. A collaboration with @jrpenades.bsky.social @wfigueroac3.bsky.social. #Staph Cell Reports www.cell.com/cell-reports...

18.02.2026 09:31 👍 26 🔁 13 💬 0 📌 0
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Last year, we proposed a model of plasmid evolution via fusion and fragmentation (via mge mediated recombination) generating mosaics, by studying historical isolates. Excited to see a MASSIVE paper from @jrpenades.bsky.social , @epcrocha.bsky.social expanding on this
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

19.02.2026 23:11 👍 75 🔁 32 💬 1 📌 1

On this fabulous day celebrating André Citroën's birthday 🥖🚗, I’m happy to share my main paper from my postdoc in @jrpenades.bsky.social Lab.
If you want to hear about how plasmid evolution is driven by mobile genetic elements, please come and read this preprint!

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

05.02.2026 16:04 👍 15 🔁 10 💬 1 📌 3
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Bacteriophages mobilize bacterial defense systems via lateral transduction Bacteriophages and PICIs spread bacterial defenses via lateral transduction, shaping microbial immunity and pathogen evolution.

Bacteriophages mobilize bacterial defense systems via lateral transduction

#phage #virus #microecoevo

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

25.01.2026 15:55 👍 17 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 0
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A DNA recognition-mimicry switch governs induction in arbitrium phages Temperate phages integrate multiple information sources to regulate lysis-lysogeny transitions. SPbeta-like phages use arbitrium signaling and DNA dam…

🫴 Fantastic work: DNA recognition-mimicry switch governs induction in arbitrium phages:

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

@spp2330.bsky.social #subtiwiki @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social

31.01.2026 22:23 👍 15 🔁 7 💬 1 📌 1
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Bacteriophages mobilize bacterial defense systems via lateral transduction Bacteriophages and PICIs spread bacterial defenses via lateral transduction, shaping microbial immunity and pathogen evolution.

#microsky #phagesky #phage defence

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

24.01.2026 11:13 👍 41 🔁 18 💬 1 📌 0
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Bacteriophages mobilize bacterial defense systems via lateral transduction Bacteriophages and PICIs spread bacterial defenses via lateral transduction, shaping microbial immunity and pathogen evolution.

@jakob-tr.bsky.social @jrpenades.bsky.social et al. 🔥!

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

24.01.2026 13:22 👍 13 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0
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An unprecedented DNA recognition–mimicry switch governs induction in arbitrium phages Temperate phages integrate multiple information sources to regulate lysis-lysogeny transitions. SPBeta-like phages use arbitrium signalling and DNA damage to control repressor activity during lytic in...

Excited to share our latest work with @albertomarina.bsky.social and @avigdoreldar.bsky.social labs, where we decipher the mechanism by which SPβ-like phages sense the SOS response to control the lysis–lysogeny switch. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

02.12.2025 09:31 👍 7 🔁 4 💬 1 📌 0
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Grantham PhD opportunities The Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment invites PhD applications that support projects in some of our priority research areas. In...

🚨 PhD Opportunity in my lab🚨
Harnessing Phage Satellites for Next-Generation Biological Crop Protection
🗓 Deadline: 12 Jan
🔗 Apply: tinyurl.com/425x8ahj
🔗 Project : tinyurl.com/22uanm86
Interested in Structural Microbiology, Phage Biology & SynBio - Apply Now!

30.11.2025 11:37 👍 3 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0

Arbitrium systems control lysis/lysogeny through the regulation of small antirepressor proteins https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.23.689978v1

25.11.2025 02:17 👍 9 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
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Bacterial immune systems as causes and consequences of microbiome structure Bacterial immune systems have evolved in response to diverse molecular "parasites", yet their ecological roles remain poorly understood. This Essay explores how interactions between mobile genetic ele...

Very happy to see this piece out in @plosbiology.org, on the bacterial immune systems and microbial communities. It was a great team effort with Rafael Custodio, @brockhurstlab.bsky.social , @brownlab.bsky.social, and Edze Westra! 🦠🧫 #phagesky #mevosky

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

19.11.2025 18:35 👍 93 🔁 48 💬 0 📌 0
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👏 Dos proyectos del #CNB seleccionados en la convocatoria de Investigación en Salud 2025 de la @caixaresearch.bsky.social

Ambos abordan un gran reto global: la resistencia a los antimicrobianos.

#HealthResearch #FundaciónlaCaixa
@sanmillan.bsky.social @jaescudero.bsky.social

f.mtr.cool/jejatlbssz

20.11.2025 11:25 👍 18 🔁 5 💬 2 📌 0
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1/ Antibiotic resistance causes ➕ than 1 M deaths each year and understanding why this happens is key to stopping it.

With #HealthResearch support, @sanmillan.bsky.social is investigating how different plasmids (DNA fragments) coexist in bacteria and confer resistance.

https://tinyurl.com/3bysv6cr

20.11.2025 11:03 👍 20 🔁 7 💬 2 📌 0
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Chromosomal Curing Drives an Arms Race Between Bacterial Transformation and Prophage Abstract. Transformation occurs when bacteria import exogenous DNA via the competence machinery and integrate it into their genome through homologous recom

#microsky #phagesky #phage

Anyone who’s tried deleting prophages in the lab by HR knows the difficulties of the task. Here we have an example of how HR-mediated natural transformation might hit the same hurdle in a more native context.

academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

23.11.2025 16:39 👍 35 🔁 16 💬 1 📌 0
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🚨Preprint alert - this is a big one! We transfer the revolutionary power of TnSeq to bacteriophages.

Our HIDEN-SEQ links the "dark matter" genes of your favorite phage to any selectable phenotype, guiding the path from fun observations to molecular mechanisms.

A thread 1/8

20.11.2025 20:39 👍 210 🔁 90 💬 11 📌 5
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The hitchhiker’s guide to cross-species DNA delivery Microbial hitchhikers are rewriting the rules of horizontal gene transfer. He, Patkowski, et al. reveal how phage satellites assemble chimeric infective particles that deliver DNA across species bound...

The hitchhiker’s guide to cross-species DNA delivery

@cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social Spotlight by Kotaro Kiga and Rodrigo Ibarra-Chávez

www.cell.com/trends/micro...

09.11.2025 09:39 👍 45 🔁 15 💬 0 📌 1
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mgrB inactivation confers enhanced pathogenicity and immune evasion over mcr-1 expression in colistin-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae Colistin is one of the last treatment options against human infections caused by multi-drug resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae. Colistin resistant K. pne…

New paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Klebs can evolve resistance to Colistin through mgrB mutation or by acquiring the mcr-1 gene. Both routes have similar fitness costs against a bacterial competitor, but mgrB mutations are associated with enhanced virulence.

06.11.2025 12:13 👍 17 🔁 8 💬 1 📌 0

Preprint: Bacteria sense virus-induced genome degradation via methylated mononucleotides

tinyurl.com/ch3damp

We show how molecular byproducts released during virus-induced cell exploitation are used as signals to trigger host immunity

Revealed by the amazing Ilya Osterman. See his thread below👇

06.11.2025 10:39 👍 61 🔁 19 💬 0 📌 1
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Please RT. Post-doc opportunity alert! 💥 closing 10th December.. Come join our team (www.thelowlab.org) at Imperial, London, working on the structure and mechanism of bacterial secretion systems.

For more details and to apply please see

www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-...

04.11.2025 17:19 👍 36 🔁 39 💬 2 📌 1
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Jumbo phage–mediated transduction of genomic islands | PNAS Bacteria acquire new genes by horizontal gene transfer, typically mediated by mobile genetic elements (MGEs). While plasmids, bacteriophages, and c...

@prczhaoyansong.bsky.social’s deep dive into the dark matter of compost communities is now out 🎉 Genomic islands hijack jumbo phages—whose capsids enable transfer of large tracts of DNA—shedding new light on the scale & scope of phage-mediated gene flow 😎

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

28.10.2025 18:36 👍 71 🔁 46 💬 1 📌 2