Latest from the lab and a fantastic collaboration with Eric Brown's team at @mcmasteriidr.bsky.social. Screening for new antibiotics from actinomycete extracts under nutrient-deprived conditions identifies a megacluster of synergistic antibiotics that target biotin biosynthesis. rdcu.be/fqejG

A Streptomyces megacluster encodes synergistic biotin-targeting antibiotics

Nature - In Streptomyces spp., a conserved biosynthetic gene megacluster produces an arsenal of distinct antimicrobials that converge on bacterial biotin biosynthesis as a naturally evolved...

rdcu.be

The latest from the lab. Manikomycin, a new cyclic depsipeptide antibiotic from an 'old' source, the oxytetracycline producer Streptomyces rimosus. Still lots to be learned from this genus! Manikomycin blocks the E-site of the bacterial ribosome. A first. links.springernature.com/f/a/Q0JMeeZK...

A natural depsipeptide antibiotic binds the E-site of the bacterial ribosome - Nature

Improved fractionation strategies can identify antibiotics with previously unseen scaffolds and mechanisms, exemplified by manikomycin from Streptomyces rimosus, which acts by targeting the E-site of ...

links.springernature.com

A great review in @cp-trendsgenetics.bsky.social by Kiguchi and Suzuki on recently discovered large mobile elements, including our description of megabase-scale plasmids in Enterobacteriaceae www.cell.com/trends/genet...

Giants within: a new class of microbial mobile elements

Prokaryotes harbor a diverse spectrum of extrachromosomal elements (ECEs), which are intracellular replicons maintained independently of the primary chromosome. Historically, the ECE research field ha...

cell.com

"Giants within: a new class of microbial mobile elements" by Yuya Kiguchi & Yutaka Suzuki "Long-read (meta)genomics has discovered giant extrachromosomal elements that were overlooked by short-read sequencing..." FREE till July 19th at authors.elsevier.com/a/1nBJMcQbJI...

🧬 New preprint out from @lingdong-shi.bsky.social et al. on the origin and evolution of archaeal Borg extrachromosomal elements across different environments. Congratulations Ling-Dong and co-authors! 📄 doi.org/10.64898/202...

Studying DNA modification in microbes shouldn't be limited by methodology. 🧬 We’re excited to introduce MODIFI, our new scalable method for detecting DNA modifications in PacBio metagenomic data and estimating ECE-host linkage. Check out the preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Metagenomic strain-resolved DNA modification patterns link extrachromosomal genetic elements to host strains https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.27.714056v1

Think you need large volumes for microbial experiments? Our recent publication introduces HiMEx, a simple, scalable method for microbial ecology. academic.oup.com/ismecommun/a... 🦠 it provides an easy, efficient approach to capturing viral diversity, opening new opportunities for virome analysis.

From microscale to microbial insights: validating high-throughput microvolume extraction (HiMEx) methods for marine microbial ecology

Abstract. Extracting and directly amplifying DNA from small-volume, low-biomass samples would enable rapid, ultra-high-throughput analyses, facilitating th

academic.oup.com

Out now in Nature Communications: Convergent evolution of viral-like Borg archaeal extrachromosomal elements and giant eukaryotic viruses www.nature.com/articles/s41... @luisvalentin.bsky.social @lingdong-shi.bsky.social @martianmicrobe.bsky.social @mschoelmerich.bsky.social

Convergent evolution of viral-like Borg archaeal extrachromosomal elements and giant eukaryotic viruses - Nature Communications

Borgs are large extrachromosomal elements of anaerobic methane-oxidizing archaea. Here, via in silico protein structure prediction of ~10,000 Borg proteins, the authors reveal that Borgs share numerou...

nature.com

New paper out: An archaeal genetic code with all TAG codons as pyrrolysine: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

An archaeal genetic code with all TAG codons as pyrrolysine

Multiple genetic codes developed during the evolution of eukaryotes and bacteria, yet no alternative genetic code is known for archaea. We used proteomics to confirm our prediction that certain archae...

science.org

Our nuclease-protease story is out! We explored a fascinating case of coevolution and modularity in prokaryotic immune systems: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Thanks to wonderful coauthors/collaborators/friends, the whole @doudna-lab.bsky.social and everyone at @innovativegenomics.bsky.social

Recurrent acquisition of nuclease-protease pairs in antiviral immunity

Antiviral immune systems diversify by integrating new genes into existing pathways, creating new mechanisms of viral resistance. We identified genes encoding a predicted nuclease paired with a trypsin...

science.org

Most plasmids described in E. coli are small compared to the megaplasmids we identified here! Check out the preprint if you want to learn about these mysterious large elements and their potential functions 🧬. I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity to work on this in @banfieldlab.bsky.social

bioRxiv Microbiology@biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Megaplasmids associate with Escherichia coli and other Enterobacteriaceae https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.30.679422v1

Amazing work by the team at McMaster & the IIDR! Finding new antibiotics is not easy. Congrats to Manoj et al on this significant discovery!

Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research@mcmasteriidr.bsky.social · last yr.

The last time a new class of antibiotics reached the market was nearly three decades ago — but that could soon change, thanks to a discovery by researchers at McMaster University. @gdwantibiotics.bsky.social | #IDsky youtu.be/657Kitrc0Co?...