RNA rules: Guanidine fuels rapid resurrection of desert cyanobacteria, controlled by a guanidine-specific riboswitch: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Guanidine fuels rapid resurrection of desert cyanobacteria | PNAS

In desert ecosystems, microbial activity is driven by brief hydration pulses but is severely limited by persistent nutrient scarcity. Cyanobacteria...

pnas.org

New in Nature: The planktonic microbiome of the Great Barrier Reef, showing the composition of the microbiome along a transect of the Great Barrier Reef in the Pacific Ocean. Lots of cyanobacteria and cyanophage genomes, here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The planktonic microbiome of the Great Barrier Reef - Nature

The Great Barrier Reef Microbial Genomes Database compiles prokaryotic, viral and eukaryotic genomes from seawater collected from the Great Barrier Reef, providing a rich resource for the study of mar...

nature.com

📣 #JobAlert The Faculty of Biology of @uni-freiburg.de invites applications for a Professorship (W3) for Bioinformatics and Molecular Genetics. ❗ Application Deadline: 15 August, 2026 🔗 kurzlinks.de/roi8 #Biology #Bioinformatics #MolecularGenetics

New breakthrough in @NucleicAcidsRes! Transcriptional Interference (TI) protects Nostoc PCC7120🦠from toxic gene expression. This is the first independent proof that TI can be monitored in vivo via the rifi R-package. doi.org/10.1093/nar/..., doi.org/10.1038/s420...

Antisense RNA controls the degradation of phycobilisomes in heterocyst-forming cyanobacteria by a transcriptional interference mechanism

Abstract. Transcriptional interference is rarely documented in bacteria. In cyanobacteria, phycobilisomes are the major light-harvesting antennae, and thei

doi.org

NAR Breakthrough Article: Antisense RNA controls the degradation of phycobilisomes in heterocyst-forming cyanobacteria by a transcriptional interference mechanism: academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Accurate RNA structure prediction remains a challenge, despite recent computational advances. This study presents DRFold2, a #DeepLearning framework that significantly enhances accuracy of de novo #RNAstructure prediction by increasing contact prediction precision @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4aoOQiX

A new + interesting paper on the guanidine riboswitch in Synechocystis and other cyanobacteria: "Deciphering guanidine assimilation and ri"boswitch-based gene regulation in cyanobacteria for synthetic biology applications" | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Deciphering guanidine assimilation and riboswitch-based gene regulation in cyanobacteria for synthetic biology applications | PNAS

Guanidine is well known as a denaturing agent. However, recent studies have demonstrated both the widespread synthesis of guanidine, e.g., in plant...

pnas.org

Riding a train in China, returning from the ISPP 2025 and the Green Carbon conference.

„RAPDOR: Using Jensen-Shannon Distance for the computational analysis of complex proteomics dataset“ rdcu.be/eImcr : 11 authors from 3 labs. Many thanks to all for making this possible!

RAPDOR: Using Jensen-Shannon Distance for the computational analysis of complex proteomics datasets

Nature Communications - RNA-binding proteins play key roles in post-transcriptional gene regulation. Here, Hemm et al. developed RAPDOR, a widely applicable tool based on Jensen-Shannon Distance...

rdcu.be

How to search for unknown RNA-binding proteins? We did GradR in the cyanobacterium Synechocystis 6803. And now our paper „RAPDOR: Using Jensen-Shannon Distance for the computational analysis of complex proteomics dataset“ is finally out in Nature Communications, here: rdcu.be/eImcr .

RAPDOR: Using Jensen-Shannon Distance for the computational analysis of complex proteomics datasets

Nature Communications - RNA-binding proteins play key roles in post-transcriptional gene regulation. Here, Hemm et al. developed RAPDOR, a widely applicable tool based on Jensen-Shannon Distance...

rdcu.be

Riding a train in Lithuania.

RNA-binding proteins and photosynthesis: The RRM domain–containing protein Rbp3 interacts with ribosomes and the 3’ ends of mRNAs encoding photosynthesis proteins | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Inorganic carbon levels regulate growth via SigC signaling cascade in cyanobacteria - Kurkela - New Phytologist - Wiley Online Library nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Inorganic carbon levels regulate growth via SigC signaling cascade in cyanobacteria

Cyanobacterial growth depends on inorganic carbon (Ci; CO2 and bicarbonate) concentration, but mechanism(s) adjusting photosynthesis and growth according to Ci remain unclear. ΔrpoZ cells lacking th...

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

How are fully submerged algae efficiently fixing carbon? All organisms performing oxygenic photosynthesis fix CO2 in the Calvin–Benson–Bassham cycle using RubisCO. But aquatic organisms have a challenge.

Out now: Cyanobacterial Argonautes and Cas4 family nucleases cooperate to interfere with invading DNA cell.com/molecular-ce... Most long-A pAgos interfere with invading DNA solo. Why then are cyanobacterial pAgos co-encoded with a Cas4-like protein?

Just three days left for the deadline for oral abstract submissions for the 15th Workshop on Cyanobacteria at Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN, USA) - don't miss out! Workshop dates: 4-7th June 2025. More information: web.cvent.com/event/3d0bd3.... Please share widely!

TIGR-Tas: A new family of modular RNA-guided DNA-targeting systems in prokaryotes and their viruses: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

TIGR-Tas: A family of modular RNA-guided DNA-targeting systems in prokaryotes and their viruses

RNA-guided systems provide remarkable versatility, enabling diverse biological functions. Through iterative structural and sequence homology-based mining starting with a guide RNA-interaction domain o...

science.org

🚨 New #Breakthrough article from @holmqvist-lab.bsky.social: "ProQ prevents mRNA degradation through inhibition of poly(A) polymerase" #RNA #Stability #Degredation #mRNA 📖 Read the full article here: https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkaf103

Why did chloroplasts retain some genes from their free-living ancestors rather than transferring all of them to the nucleus following endosymbiosis? We suggest that mRNA targeting might play a role. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Does mRNA targeting explain gene retention in chloroplasts?

During their evolution from cyanobacteria, plastids have relinquished most of their genes to the host cell nucleus, but have retained a core set of ge…

sciencedirect.com

Would you expect that Bacteria use an archaellum for swimming? We didn't, but we found that some Chloroflexota do! Find the story here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... A little thread below 1/n

Horizontal gene transfer of the functional archaellum machinery to Bacteria

Motility in Archaea is driven by a nanomachinery called the archaellum. So far, archaella have been exclusively described for the archaeal domain; however, a recent study reported the presence of arch...

biorxiv.org

🅲🅾🅾🅻 🆃🅴🅲🅷🅽🅾🅻🅾🅶🆈 “Bacterial-MERFISH” provides ~1000-fold volumetric expansion of individual cells, charts gene expression in hundreds of thousands of cells, deciphering bacterial single-cell heterogeneity, intracellular transcriptome organization, and bacterial adaptation to µm-scale niches in vivo

Highly multiplexed spatial transcriptomics in bacteria

Single-cell decisions made in complex environments underlie many bacterial phenomena. Image-based transcriptomics approaches offer an avenue to study such behaviors, yet these approaches have been hin...

science.org

Multicellularity is a key feature of complex life, but how to study multicellularity in bacteria and at the single cell level? Use advanced microscopy, MS imaging, flow cytometry, spatial and single-cell transcriptomics, advanced microfluidics and more. See here: journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Resolving spatiotemporal dynamics in bacterial multicellular populations: approaches and challenges | Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews

SUMMARYThe development of multicellularity represents a key evolutionary transition that is crucial for the emergence of complex life forms. Although multicellularity has traditionally been studied in...

journals.asm.org

Mark your calendars for next Tuesday: Tel Aviv University's Prof. Eilon Shani will present a #CRISPR -based toolkit that targets multiple genes at a genome-wide scale, addressing functional overlap in genetic systems and to uncover hidden mechanisms behind hormone transport. kurzlinks.de/fprn

The conformational space of RNase P RNA in solution using atomic force microscopy: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The conformational space of RNase P RNA in solution - Nature

Using a deep neural network and statistical analyses of atomic force microscopy images of individual RNA molecules enables the mapping of RNA conformational space in solution.

nature.com

Not all bacteria, even of a single species, are created equal. Nor are they always unicellular. Some cyanobacteria develop heterocysts and fix nitrogen. GradR/R-DeeP analysis identified new RNA-binding proteins. Some were previously known for other functions. Others were completely uncharacterized.

R-DeeP/TripepSVM identifies the RNA-binding OB-fold-like protein PatR as regulator of heterocyst patterning. academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

R-DeeP/TripepSVM identifies the RNA-binding OB-fold-like protein PatR as regulator of heterocyst patterning

Abstract. RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) are central components of gene regulatory networks. The differentiation of heterocysts in filamentous cyanobacteria i

academic.oup.com

We are looking for a new colleague :) Please spread the word!

CIBSS – Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies@cibss.bsky.social · 2y ago

📢 Job Alert! The Faculty of #Biology of the @uni-freiburg.de is seeking for a researcher with a competitive, internationally visible profile in #ChemicalBiology focusing on #BiologicalSignallingResearch. Join us and apply by 28 February, 25! More info: uni-freiburg.de/stellenangeb...

ISPP-18, the "International Symposium on Phototrophic Prokaryotes" will take place September 8-12, 2025. This is the best conference in the world to learn about recent research in photosynthetic prokaryotes. Only every 3 years. Registration for ISPP-18 is now open. ispp2025-qingdao.com

How Small Proteins Adjust the Metabolism of Cyanobacteria Under Stress: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

How Small Proteins Adjust the Metabolism of Cyanobacteria Under Stress

Cyanobacteria are powered by oxygenic photosynthesis located in extensive internal membrane systems, the thylakoids. Using carboxysomes, they assimilate organic from inorganic carbon. The integration...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

The structure of Zorya is mind-blowing 🙀 www.nature.com/articles/s41...