Our latest work by PhD student Maja Popović in collab with @romain-briandet.bsky.social & Yasmine Dergham=> Disruption of bacteriophage integration site promotes rapid diversification of multicellular traits in Bacillus subtilis | Microbiology Spectrum journals.asm.org/eprint/MQ2RH...

Disruption of bacteriophage integration site promotes rapid diversification of multicellular traits in Bacillus subtilis | Microbiology Spectrum

Prophages, defined as viruses integrated into bacterial genomes, can reshape bacterial physiology and evolution. Previous studies suggested that disruption of an integration site (spsM) by the SPβ pro...

journals.asm.org

Another day in the lab☺️🇸🇮 BF_UL with @hanarb.bsky.social and rest of the team🦠

Took a while to make this teaching slide🧑‍🎓, so maybe the community will find it useful, or at least criticism will lead me to its improvement😉 Apologies to all bioinformaticians whose 'babies' are not up there🫢

@hanarb.bsky.social Hannah Bonham masterpiece, capturing Bacillus subtilis (red) lysis💀 by lytic phage. Phage DNA stained with SYBR gold (green). 😎🤓 @erc.europa.eu

An aggregate of phage scientists at gala dinner #SSM2025, interstingly all linked by present/past in 🇩🇰☺️

Nature research paper: Prophages block cell surface receptors to preserve their viral progeny go.nature.com/3IwINxb

Prophages block cell surface receptors to preserve their viral progeny - Nature

Zip promotes the accumulation of free phages in bacterial lysogen communities, safeguarding phage progeny.

go.nature.com

Phage and bacterial immunity session🤗 opened by @francoisrousset.bsky.social

Beautifull venue Casino Kursaal #SSM2025. Two keynote talks: Pascale Vonaesch🇨🇭and Rafael Pinilla-Redondo🇩🇰, phages starring in both🤩

And the best room view award goes to SSM2025 in Interlaken🇨🇭

@annadragos.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Omw to SSM2025 meeting🤗 to give a talk tomorrow @aharms485.bsky.social ppt almost finished😉🦠🆘 (im ok, last emoji corr to my session😅

Omw to SSM2025 meeting🤗 to give a talk tomorrow @aharms485.bsky.social ppt almost finished😉🦠🆘 (im ok, last emoji corr to my session😅

Omw to SSM2025 meeting🤗 to give a talk tomorrow @aharms485.bsky.social ppt almost finished😉🦠🆘 (im ok, last emoji corr to my session😅

Latest review from our lab by postdoc Nina Vesel et al in collab with colleagues from the department👇🤗🥳 natural competence and phage experts join forces💪

Ákos T Kovács@evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Naturally competent bacteria and their genetic parasites - A battle for control over horizontal gene transfer? @femsjournals.bsky.social Microbiol Rev by Nina Vesel, Eva Stare, @polonca32.bsky.social, Valentina Floccari, Ines Mandic Mulec & @annadragos.bsky.social academic.oup.com/femsre/advan...

www.nature.com/articles/s42... Recent work from our lab, PhD work of Valentinna Floccari in collab with @bramkamplab.bsky.social lab and @evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social and many others. 🥳🤓

Lysogenic control of Bacillus subtilis morphology and fitness by Spbetavirus phi3T - Communications Biology

Lysogenic conversion exerted by phi3T, SPbeta-like virus on the bacterial host Bacillus subtilis leads to a strong alteration of host features, especially in terms of host cell morphology, fitness and...

nature.com

Experimental project MIKROBUM where we collaborated with faculty of social sciences and artists from non-profit org. Zavod Kersnikova, mentoring 8 students from different fields. They came up with cool artistic research🎭🦠 ideas involving microbes. Surely to be continued...

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

Prophages block cell surface receptors to preserve their viral progeny - Nature

Zip promotes the accumulation of free phages in bacterial lysogen communities, safeguarding phage progeny.

nature.com

Lovely visit to ICTP in Trieste together with Jaka Jakin Lazar to meet our collaborators Jacopo Grilli @jacrickets.bsky.social, Lorenzo Fant & Akari Matsuki🤗 brainstorming on phage-host dynamics, tasty☕️, best views🤩

#Bacell2025 in Amsterdam, great week full of Bacillus science. Thanks to Leendert Hamoen and the team🙏

Bacillus subtilis ensures high spore quality in competition with Salmonella Typhimurium via the SigB-dependent pathway - Eli Podnar from the group of Ines Mandic Mulec #BACELL2025

Adele Pioppi from our lab is now on the scene at #BACELL2025 presenting on Sorghum-derived flavonoids influence Bacillus growth #MicrobiomeEcology at #LeidenBiology

Ljubljana team on the way to #Bacell in Amsterdam

Friday 'team buidling'😉 of Microbiology Department hosted by department head Ines Mandić Mulec🍻 group photo next to new dep logo designed by Maja Popović from our group😁 with @hanarb.bsky.social @uporabniskoime.bsky.social

Last week at 20 Years of the Centre for Functional Genomics and Bio-Chips (CFGBC) at Faculty of Medicine UL. Cool promotional ginger bread cookies. photo with Tanja Kunej and Klementina Fon Tacer

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Timely excision of prophage Φ13 is essential for the Staphylococcus aureus infectious process

Mobile genetic elements play an essential part in the infectious process of major pathogens, yet the role of prophage dynamics in Staphylococcus aureus pathogenesis is still not well understood. Here ...

biorxiv.org

Another nice example of prophage induction during interbacterial competition 💣 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Bacterial peptide deformylase inhibitors induce prophages in competitors

While antibiotics mediate chemical warfare among microbes, their roles in the wild extend beyond direct growth inhibition. Some antibiotics have the potential to mediate interference competition by tr...

biorxiv.org

Phage people: Rich Losick and I are combing the world looking for T4 rIIB mutant FC0 (also known as P13). FC0 was the starting point for Francis Crick's beautiful 1961 paper on the triplet nature of the genetic code. We want to sequence it. Anyone have it in an ancient stock collection?

I have an opportunity to hire a staff scientist for my lab. Looking for someone with outstanding skillset in ML/statistics, genomics applications; interest in mentoring, strong publication record, PD experience required. Email CV to me+cc my assistant (see 'contact' on my website). Ad to follow.

Prophage induction - nice study, inducers other than MitC, but also that inducer concentration matters. Search for optimum needed to get highest titers ☝️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

High-throughput screening reveals diverse lambdoid prophage inducers

Prophages; dormant bacteriophage genomes integrated within the bacterial chromosome, play pivotal roles in shaping microbial communities when awakened. Our current understanding of prophage activation...

biorxiv.org

@evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social finally made it to Bsky:) only 4 followers so far😭 #Prophage, #Bacillus, #SPbetavirus researchers, follow some news and views from #Ljubljana phage group. Recent group photo😊