Happy to share our recent story on the Type VII secretion system. Here were present new insights into the regulation of secretion mediated by the central pore. Thanks to all authors involved in the work. 🙂

bioRxiv Microbiology@biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · 5d ago

Intrinsic flexibility of Type VII secretion central pore is required for substrate translocation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.31.742005v1

Delighted to have this collaborative work out in @natmicrobiol.nature.com on how A. muciniphila deploys its sulfatases, both their localisation and substrate specificity, to metabolise colonic mucin www.nature.com/articles/s41... #glycotime.

Unique adaptations in sulfatases underpin colonic mucin degradation by Akkermansia muciniphila - Nature Microbiology

Structural and biochemical follow-up of a serendipitous discovery reveals that Akkermansia muciniphila carbohydrate sulfatases are uniquely adapted to digest colonic mucins in collaboration with other...

nature.com

Read our new paper! We show how the protease BepA binds the BAM complex and undergoes striking conformational changes, embedding its water-soluble lid into the membrane to cleave outer membrane proteins. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #cryoEM #astburycentre

This has been such a fun collaboration and a great example of team science

Patrick Moynihan@pmoyniha.bsky.social · last mo.

New paper in collaboration with @proftracypalmer.bsky.social, @lislowe.bsky.social and many more. We show that mycobacteria produce Type VII secreted anti-bacterial protein toxins. Excited to explore this new area of mycobacterial biology. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Out after a lot of hard work from many people. When we first found arabinanase enzymes in mycobacteria we started looking into their roles in cell remodelling & pathogenesis. Did not expect to find that some species had weaponised them to kill competitors! Myco are endlessly surprising. #glycotime

Patrick Moynihan@pmoyniha.bsky.social · last mo.

New paper in collaboration with @proftracypalmer.bsky.social, @lislowe.bsky.social and many more. We show that mycobacteria produce Type VII secreted anti-bacterial protein toxins. Excited to explore this new area of mycobacterial biology. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Check out our latest T7SS toxin story. These reverse toxins aren’t as rare as we thought!

bioRxiv Microbiology@biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · last mo.

A novel reverse lipase toxin substrate of the Staphylococcus aureus type VII secretion system https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.22.733114v1

１）Call for Principal Investigator Positions at Quantum Computing (Q) core bio2q.keio.ac.jp/wp-content/u... ２）Call for Bio2Q Postdoctoral Fellows bio2q.keio.ac.jp/wp-content/u... ３）Call for Bio2Q Q Core Postdoctoral Internships bio2q.keio.ac.jp/wp-content/u...

Open Call for Structural Analysis Facility Staff bio2q.keio.ac.jp/wp-content/u...

Latest research from the lab out now. We examined the role and expression of fimbriae during UPEC bloodstream infection. A real team effort and brilliant collaboration with Mark Schembri’s lab in Brisbane. Thanks to the MRC and BBSRC for supporting our research @ukri.org

Yad fimbriae are triggered by host cues and enhance extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli tissue colonisation during bloodstream infection

Author summary Extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli (ExPEC) colonise the human gut without causing disease but can disseminate to the urinary tract and bloodstream. Understanding the mechanisms...

journals.plos.org

Excited to share this paper from @yiechanglin.bsky.social showing how lipids can move between bacterial membranes along the bridge like protein TamB. Also happy to be able to post the cool movie. 🎥🌟 #MDsimulations #StructuralBiology doi.org/10.1016/j.bp...

Happy to have this collaborative work with Zach Armstrong now out in Angewandte chemie doi.org/10.1002/anie... . We use a linked assay, coupled with fluorescent probes, to analyse mucin active carbohydrate sulfatase kinetics, cellular location, and inhibition.

Fluorogenic Coupled Assays Reveal Catalytic Properties, Inhibition Constants and Cellular Location of Mucin‐Active Carbohydrate Sulfatases

We report plate-based coupled assays to rapidly and quantitatively determine the activity and selectivity of mucin-active carbohydrate sulfatases. This fluorogenic assay further enables inhibitor ide...

doi.org

First paper for PhD student in the Bolam / Lowe labs Natalia Łoś on a the characterisation of a new CBM family that binds (beta) mannan! #glycotime @natalia-los.bsky.social 🥳🥳 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Unusual molecular architecture of a human gut microbiota β-mannanase reveals a new CBM family - Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences

β-mannans are plant structural and storage polysaccharides prevalent in the human diet. Their degradation in the gastrointestinal tract is mediated by the human gut microbiota (HGM) through expression...

link.springer.com

Now online. Great collaboration with the Tidow lab @seegerlab and the @embl SAXS beamline. Capturing transient states of heterodimeric ABC transporter TM287/288 by time-resolved small-angle X-ray scattering: Biophysical Journal www.cell.com/biophysj/ful...

Capturing transient states of heterodimeric ABC transporter TM287/288 by time-resolved small-angle X-ray scattering

Structures of the heterodimeric ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter TM287/288 have previously been determined in several states indicating large conformational changes during its reaction cycle. Ho...

cell.com

Our study on Bacteroides iron piracy is now out in @pnas.org. We show how surface-exposed lipoproteins bind xenosiderophores with different iron-chelating chemistries and propose a mechanism for xenosiderophore import across the outer membrane. Lots of structures (mostly X-ray this time)!

Structural basis of iron piracy by human gut Bacteroides | PNAS

Iron is an essential element that can be growth-limiting in microbial communities, particularly those present within host organisms. To acquire iro...

doi.org

ComEC structure is out!! 😍 Congratulations to the authors! That’s not an easy one. We have been trying for years to get that structure… We failed and gave up.

Structural basis for DNA processing and membrane translocation by ComEC in natural transformation

Natural transformation is one of the major pathways of horizontal gene transfer in bacteria, enabling the acquisition of extracellular DNA and its integration into the host genome. ComEC is a membrane...

science.org

www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Structural insights into the mechanism underpinning iron piracy in pathogenic Neisseria

Neisseria hijacks iron from human proteins for survival and pathogenesis.

science.org

65 years after Peter Mitchell’s chemiosmotic theory, we report an association between ATP synthase and the electron transport chain. In the preprint led by @longzhou88.bsky.social, we describe a large supercomplex and show how the supramolecular organization contribute to oxidative phosphorylation 🧵

2D classes of the 58 kDa sample collected on the 100 keV Tundra TEM with a Falcon C detector at @nusbf.bsky.social @newcastleuni.bsky.social. Still much work to do to optimise the sample & data collection but its cool to see what a 100 keV TEM is capable of. #cryoEM @recon4imd.bsky.social

Unbelievably proud of the work that everyone has put into this paper. Really grateful for such fab colleagues! Mycobacteria continue to be (subjectively) the most interesting bacteria 🤭

Patrick Moynihan@pmoyniha.bsky.social · 4mo ago

We've been we've been working on this for quite a while now (hopefully published soon). Grateful to @proftracypalmer.bsky.social for concinving me & @lislowe.bsky.social that mycobacteria produce inter-bacterial toxins. Team science, led by @sambenedict5.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A GH with an immunity protein that binds with nM affinity and looks like this 🤩. Bacteria are always surprising us

We’ve been sciencing! M abscessus makes a arabinanase toxin to chop up the cell wall of competitor mycobacteria! #glycotime 🦠 thanks to @wellcometrust.bsky.social for the funding that makes this collaborative work possible! Also Sam’s structures are 😍 and Jean-Lou did some lovely biochem

Patrick Moynihan@pmoyniha.bsky.social · 4mo ago

We've been we've been working on this for quite a while now (hopefully published soon). Grateful to @proftracypalmer.bsky.social for concinving me & @lislowe.bsky.social that mycobacteria produce inter-bacterial toxins. Team science, led by @sambenedict5.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🚨 A new piece of the preterm gut microbiome puzzle just fell into place! Bifidobacterium metabolise human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) in early life — shaping immunity, supporting gut development, and protecting against diseases like necrotising enterocolitis (NEC). www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Clostridia from preterm infants metabolize human milk oligosaccharides to suppress pathobionts and modulate intestinal function in organoids - Nature Microbiology

Clostridium perfringens lacking perfringolysin O toxin isolated from preterm infants metabolizes human milk oligosaccharide disialyllacto-N-tetraose to produce metabolites that promote the growth of c...

nature.com

Great to see Arnaud Basle, facility manager of our structural biology facility @nusbf.bsky.social there representing @newcastleuni.bsky.social 👏

Instruct-ERIC@instruct-eric.bsky.social · 5mo ago

The Instruct Best Practices in Cryo-EM Workshop is an opportunity for facility staff and technicians to exchange experiences and the latest developments EM - thank you to all participants for a great meeting so far in Milan! @thermofishersci.bsky.social #IMAGINE @humantechnopole.bsky.social

I've written a review on what I think is an extremely exciting direction in cryo-EM: Cryo-EM of endogenous membrane proteins in their native lipid bilayer Open access in Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics: doi.org/10.1017/S003...

Structural and functional characterisation of the dextran utilisome from Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.19.706672v1 #cryoEM

I’ve officially started my lab at Monash University! 🎉 We’re diving into #cellgrowth and #lysosome biology, through the lens of molecular #structure and mechanism. I’m thrilled to say that PhD student scholarships are available—so please share widely and get in touch if you’re interested. 🤩

My latest preprint on the LolB in Bacteroides! Can't delete it, but you can deplete it to basically nothing and cells grow fine, plus lipoproteins still get to the cell surface 🤯 There is still SO much to understand about lipoproteins in Bacteroides!

A gift of an article from the inimitable Colin Kleanthous as he says a moving farewell to his laboratory. A brave, unrepentant and scientifically brilliant journey is described - please have a read, friends. www.jbc.org/article/S002...

Bacteriocin biophysics: From protein-protein interaction models to navigators of the bacterial cell envelope

Bacteriocins are toxins deployed by bacteria to kill their competitors. Here, I reflect on my laboratory’s work on protein bacteriocins and their immunity proteins from Gram-negative bacteria. We unco...

jbc.org

Still lots of time to apply for this exciting project with us. Please share and encourage interested students to get in touch.

James Connolly@ruamicro.bsky.social · 6mo ago

PhD position available in our team to study how UPEC exploits metals to successfully colonise the host gut. Cool collaboration with @thecopperdoctor.bsky.social and @banzhaflab.bsky.social Please share and get in touch for more details

BBSSRC (NEEDL) funded PhD studentship in my lab co-supervised by @thecopperdoctor.bsky.social and @mycobacterium-ncl.bsky.social If you're interested in structural biology and membrane transport processes, check out www.findaphd.com/phds/project... deadline 27th of Feb! Get in touch for more info