1/1 How does a single methyl group activate bacterial defence? In my PhD work with @matthiaswilmanns.bsky.social and @typaslab.bsky.social, we reveal how this tiny DNA modification triggers retron disassembly and toxin activation. Now on bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Single-site DNA methylation activates retron defence by enabling effector tetramerisation

Retrons are unique among bacterial defence systems in using DNA to sense phage infection. They achieve this by producing multicopy single-stranded DNA (msDNA) that monitors the activity of DNA-targeti...

biorxiv.org

Viruses evolve at an "insanely high” pace, said microbiologist Philip Kranzusch. And yet, weirdly, our immune defenses share many ancient antiviral tools with bacteria. “Why would the rules be so fixed?” https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-ancient-weapons-active-in-your-immune-system-today-20260415/

Our story with @hobbslabutah.bsky.social discovering CBASS sensing of phage proteases out now in @science.org New data include CBASS recognition of diverse proteases beyond T4, and verifying CD-NTase activation loop cleavage as the trigger for defense in vivo www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Phage proteases activate CBASS antiphage immunity

Cyclic oligonucleotide–based antiphage signaling systems (CBASS) are bacterial immune pathways evolutionarily related to cGAS-STING (cyclic GMP-AMP synthase–stimulator of interferon genes) in humans. ...

science.org

Kranzusch Lab@kranzuschlab.bsky.social · 8mo ago

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...

The final version of our manuscript on TnSeq in bacteriophages (“HIDEN-SEQ”) is out today – if you have an interesting phage phenotype and want to know the underlying genetic basis, this one is for you! 1/4

🚨 We are excited to share the first preprint of our lab ! We discovered an NADase enzymatic domain in bacterial immunity and in the human protein TEP1. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A widespread NADase domain links bacterial immunity with human TEP1

Recent discoveries on bacterial immunity have revealed that several protein domains involved in anti-phage defense are conserved in eukaryotes, such as SIRim, TIR, PNP and gasdermin. Bacterial immune ...

biorxiv.org

Really excited to share our new manuscript on how the #NLR protein #AfsR regulates #Streptomyces antibiotic production - and how we can use its similarity to plant NLR immune receptors to enhance this production! 📄🧵 (1/17) @johninnescentre.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A conserved NLR activation switch governs global transcriptional control of antibiotic biosynthesis in Streptomyces

Nucleotide-binding and oligomerization domain-like receptors (NLRs) are conserved molecular switches that regulate innate immunity across diverse domains of life. While best known for their roles in i...

biorxiv.org

📽️ Did you miss our talk at the Spring CCP-EM Symposium 2026? You can now watch the full talk from Structura, where we share some of the latest and upcoming developments in #CryoSPARC and single-particle #cryoEM: Check out the full talk here 👇 www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rilg...

New Developments for Single Particle Cryo-EM Data Processing in CryoSPARC | Ali Punjani (Structura)

YouTube video by CCP-EM

youtube.com

We’re so excited to share our new paper, where we tackle the wealth of structural and functional diversity of anti-phage sensors across bacteria (1/6)

Nature@nature.com · 3mo ago

Nature research paper: Diverse bacterial pattern recognition receptors sense the core phage proteome go.nature.com/45fpXCZ

New Preprint 🥳 Here we wondered how phages that have been extensively studied in laboratory E. coli strains actually behave when they encounter a real pathogen such as O157:H7 strain...one with a far more complex cell surface & one of the most consequential foodborne pathogens in the United States.

Animated E. coli Bacteria Drawing

Alt: Animated E. coli Bacteria Drawing

static.klipy.com

Out @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social, natural products meet bacterial immunity! We used genomics to identify lanthivirins: a family of >2,000 lanthipeptide BGCs that protect Actinobacteria against phages. Led by @hshomar.bsky.social & @mariegllm.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A family of lanthipeptides with anti-phage function

Bacteria produce natural products to adapt to their environments, with phage interactions as major ecological and evolutionary drivers. While some nat…

sciencedirect.com

Our paper out in Science today: The Metis defense system senses molecular byproducts released when a phage degrades the bacterial genome, and then prevents replication of the phage in the infected cell Congratulations @ostermanilya.bsky.social and co-authors!

Bacteria sense virus-induced genome degradation via methylated mononucleotides

Phages often degrade the genome of their bacterial host to individual nucleotides. Here we describe Metis, a bacterial defense system that directly senses phage-mediated host genome degradation. Metis...

science.org

Osterman Ilya@ostermanilya.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Excited to share that our Metis story is now published in Science! 🎉 Bacteria can sense phage-induced degradation of their genome and activate immunity. Many thanks to everyone who contributed to this work. 📄 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... More details in my earlier thread 🧵⬇️

Humans and bacteria share strategies to defend against viruses. We wondered: could they use each other's genes? Yes, both can! Bacteria can use human immune genes to defend against phages AND Human cells can use bacterial genes for viral defense. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Bacterial and human exonucleases mediate interkingdom antiviral immunity

All kingdoms of life have developed strategies to limit viral infection. In humans, interferons induce a suite of antiviral factors that collectively provide immunity. Some human immune genes are homo...

biorxiv.org

CapK is a bacterial DNA damage-activated kinase that phosphorylates transcriptional repressor CapS to control adjacently-encoded anti-phage immune pathway genes in response to a universal stress signal, DNA damage @kevincorbett.bsky.social and colleagues link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A DNA damage-activated kinase phosphorylates a transcriptional repressor to control bacterial immune pathway expression - The EMBO Journal

Bacteria encode numerous stress-response pathways that protect their hosts against both internal and external threats. A key question is how these pathways are regulated, especially anti-phage immune ...

link.springer.com

How do human cells defend against viruses? @sgfern.bsky.social discovers that human immune proteins named ISGs target ancient features of replication shared between animal and bacterial viruses – opening analysis of human immunity to the power of bacterial genetics www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Great piece and cover @science.org about how our field is uncovering the evolutionary and mechanistic connections between bacterial and eukaryotic immunity ! www.science.org/content/article/ancient-wars-between-microbes-gave-us-key-immune-defenses

Thrilled to have contributed to this work, co-led with Laurel and Emily. We show that a single immune protein binds MULTIPLE PAMPs and block phage infection. Check out Laurel’s thread for more details—

laurelrobbins.bsky.social@laurelrobbins.bsky.social · 6mo ago

I’m thrilled to share an update to our work on bacterial NACHT domain containing proteins! In our last preprint, we reported that bNACHT11 is activated by multiple phage proteins. We’ve now expanded this work with structural insight and investigation of programmed cell death following activation.

Congratulations to @aragucci.bsky.social and @sadieantine.bsky.social for their nuclease-NTPase work now online in final form at @natmicrobiol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Kranzusch Lab@kranzuschlab.bsky.social · last yr.

Starting the lab Bluesky account to share a preprint from @aragucci.bsky.social and @sadieantine.bsky.social‬ that reveals molecular principles shared across diverse nuclease-NTPase anti-phage defense systems in bacterial immunity (1/7) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Excited to share our discovery of a new programmable RNA-guided DNA-targeting system hiding inside bacteriophages that predates CRISPR. We call it VIPR (Viral Interference Programmable Repeat), and it uses an entirely new logic to find its targets. Thread + link below.

Very proud of this work and all the efforts from my team and collaborators on this! You can now use DGRs for in vivo targeted hypermutagenesis in E. coli. We also included some early proof of concept in Yeast thanks to @seth-shipman.bsky.social !

Raphael Laurenceau@raphael-microb.bsky.social · 7mo ago

🔈Paper out! We turned the most fascinating phage host-switch mechanism, diversity-generating retroelements, into a programmable mutagenesis tool, DGRec. You can perform targeted hypermutation of any 50-200bp sequence directly in vivo in E. coli www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congrats to Chase Morgan @phagemorgan.bsky.social and the phage team!

Vivek Mutalik@vivekmutalik.bsky.social · 7mo ago

The phage nucleus synergizes with an anti-defense protein to resist bacterial immunity: Cell Reports www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Want to highlight parallel work too from @aharms485.bsky.social lab that pulled AdfM out of a phage genome screen and independently named it the same! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Happy to have contributed to this work, @kevincorbett.bsky.social

Chase Morgan@phagemorgan.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Excited to share the last installation of my PhD work. Worked with an all-star team on this one who really made this all come together beautifully. @ranidreamer.bsky.social @amardeeep.bsky.social @benadler.bsky.social and many others. www.cell.com/cell-reports...

How diverse is bacterial immunity ? We report in @science.org how language models allowed us to predict 2.4M antiphage proteins spanning >23K novel potential systems. 👏 @emordret.bsky.social, @alexhv.bsky.social & al doi.org/10.1126/scie... Explore them here defensefinder.mdmlab.fr/wiki/refseq_...

Happy to share the final version of my postdoc work on bacterial CBASS immunity with @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social published in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

Bacterial 2′,3′-cGAMP activates a SAVED effector to form membrane-disrupting filaments and restrict phage replication

Tak et al. discover that bacteria use 2′,3′-cGAMP, the same signaling molecule employed by mammalian cGAS-STING, for phage defense. In response to phage, 2′,3′-cGAMP activates filament formation of Ca...

cell.com

Excited to share the first preprint from the lab! We show that ApeA defends against RNA phage infection by cleaving the phage genome: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Our work on bacterial Schlafens in phage defense is out today @natmicrobiol.nature.com! Check out the final version here: rdcu.be/e7Bmz We are looking for postdocs and students to expand our team! Official postings are coming soon. Please reach out if you're interested! #phage #phagesky #microsky

Bacterial Schlafen proteins mediate phage defence

Nature Microbiology - This study highlights that Schlafens are ancient, mechanistically conserved immune effectors that mediate antiviral immunity in organisms ranging from humans to bacteria.

rdcu.be

Artem Nemudryi@artemnemudryi.bsky.social · last yr.

First preprint from the Nemudryi Lab! 🍾 In this work, we link antiviral immunity in bacteria and humans by showing that homologs of human Schlafen nucleases protect bacteria from phages. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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...

Very excited to see this work out today! Discovering viral immune antagonists directly from predicted protein structures. 🤩 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Huge thanks to the amazing collaborators! 🤗

Structural modeling reveals phage proteins that manipulate bacterial immune signaling

Immune systems in animals, plants, and bacteria often rely on intracellular nucleotide signaling, which viruses can block by sequestering or degrading these signals. We identified structural and bioph...

science.org

Sorek Lab@soreklab.bsky.social · 8mo ago

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

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

Structural modeling reveals phage proteins that manipulate bacterial immune signaling

Immune systems in animals, plants, and bacteria often rely on intracellular nucleotide signaling, which viruses can block by sequestering or degrading these signals. We identified structural and bioph...

science.org

Nitzan Tal@nitzantal.bsky.social · last yr.

📢Preprint out! Excited to share my final work from the @soreklab.bsky.social! We mined phage dark matter using structural features shared by anti-defense proteins (viral tools that help phages bypass bacterial immunity) to guide discovery. Found 3 new families targeting immune signaling!

Stunning new structural analysis and mechanism for Tmn anti-phage defense by @fnobrega.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...