📢 External seminar at the IBFG! 🥼Talk by Dr. Hon Wing Liu - University of Lausanne @unil.bsky.social (Lausanne, Switzerland) 🔬Topic: Does Size Matter? How Bacterial SMC Wadjet Defence Systems Sense and Eliminate Plasmids 🗓️ July 24, 2026 – 12:00 PM 📍 IBFG Auditorium, Salamanca

Glad to see this out after a rather interesting review/publication process! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The SMC Hinge is a Selective Gate for Obstacle Bypass - Nature Communications

SMC complexes are ring-shaped motors that fold DNA by extruding loops, but how they navigate large DNA obstacles is unclear. Here, Liu et al., show that SMC complexes bypass obstacles by threading obs...

nature.com

The mountain season is back!

Here’s a before & after view after the village of Batten in Switzerland was destroyed by a glacial collapse. Fortunately, the town had been evacuated long before disaster struck. Climate change likely had a role in this.

Exciting news!! Our latest paper is out in Nat. Microbiol. @natmicrobiol.nature.com We show that a sub-lineage of 7th pandemic V. cholerae has acquired mobile genetic elements packed with phage defense systems—rendering it multi-phage resistant 😳 ..... 1/3 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

West African–South American pandemic Vibrio cholerae encodes multiple distinct phage defence systems - Nature Microbiology

The West African–South American lineage of Vibrio cholerae contains multiple distinct anti-phage defence systems that provide resistance to various phage families, including vibriophage ICP1, a key pr...

nature.com

Join the Blokesch lab (@EPFL) as a postdoc in Molecular Microbiology 🤩 Study Vibrio cholerae defense systems (phage/plasmid) in a dynamic, collaborative environment in Lausanne close to Lake Geneva in 🇨🇭! Please visit my lab's webpage for details about the position and how to formally apply.

Back from the 2025 EMBO Workshop on the Bacterial Immune System in Paris. Full of awesome and inspiring (and at times crazy) science from many bright scientists! Looking forward to more collaborations that will be forged from the meeting. Thanks to the organisers (ps the cheese and wine were great).

Earnshaw, Goloborodko, Dekker & Mirny labs are excited to present our latest work, "Rules of engagement for condensins and cohesins guide mitotic chromosome formation" - now accepted!! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... A short clip describing the key results: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmvO...

Rules of Engagement

YouTube video by Johan Gibcus

youtube.com

And here it is, the completed BASEL collection finally published as early access in @plosbiology.org - see the thread for more details. 🤗🧬🎣

Alexander Harms@aharms485.bsky.social · 2y ago

🚨 🧬 Updated preprint on the completed BASEL collection - what's new? Some fun with bacterial immunity and a new P22 relative infecting E. coli K-12. A thread 🧵

Structural basis for Lamassu-based antiviral immunity and its evolution from DNA repair machinery https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.02.646746v1

How do SMC complexes capture DNA? 🧪 Led by Frank Bürmann, Jan Löwe’s & Mark Dillingham’s groups have identified the directional loading mechanism the bacterial SMC complex MukBEF uses to capture & ingest DNA, & found a phage inhibitor to this pathway. Read more: tinyurl.com/4s8nrrkk #LMBResearch

Absolutely lucked out with this shot of the #partialsolareclipse with snowflakes - during a winter hike in Valais when I got a notif from a London-based friend, in effect "look up". Did not expect this at all - was snowing/overcast the whole morning and still snowing when the shot was taken!

Yet another preprint from the lab—this one is personal. During my PhD, I ended up working on the cohesin SMC hinge, showing its role in sister chromatid cohesion and proposing it as a DNA entry gate in the SMC ring. But the details have remained mysterious and controversial.

Happy to share our latest work. Wadjet-I SMC hinges are gates allowing selective bypass of obstacles connected through ssDNA BUT are dispensable for extrusion of naked DNA. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The SMC Hinge is a Selective Gate for Obstacle Bypass

DNA loop-extruding SMC complexes play vital roles in genome maintenance and DNA immunity. However, the ability of these ring-shaped DNA motors to navigate large DNA-bound obstacles, such as DNA/RNA po...

biorxiv.org

Stephan Gruber@gruberlab.bsky.social · last yr.

Yet another preprint from the lab—this one is personal. During my PhD, I ended up working on the cohesin SMC hinge, showing its role in sister chromatid cohesion and proposing it as a DNA entry gate in the SMC ring. But the details have remained mysterious and controversial.

Very pleased to share our new story on SMC complexes, a great team effort from @roisnehamelinf.bsky.social, @taschner.bsky.social in the GruberLab and James of @dnatopologylab.bsky.social We find that SMC hinge domains are ssDNA gates to facilitate obstacle bypass during DNA loop extrusion!

Stephan Gruber@gruberlab.bsky.social · last yr.

Yet another preprint from the lab—this one is personal. During my PhD, I ended up working on the cohesin SMC hinge, showing its role in sister chromatid cohesion and proposing it as a DNA entry gate in the SMC ring. But the details have remained mysterious and controversial.

The SMC Hinge is a Selective Gate for Obstacle Bypass https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.17.643644v1

Glad to share the work of @yli18smc.bsky.social and co on Lamassu, a bacterial defense system related to Rad50/Mre11 (RM). While RM carefully trims DNA ends for repair, Lamassu chops up the host chromosome. Our study reveals how it is regulated to minimize damage, activating only during infection.

Structure and Activation Mechanism of a Lamassu Phage Defence System https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.14.643221v1

Happy to be part of this fantastic collaboration between the Gruber, Blokesch and Szczelkun Labs to elucidate the activation mechanism of the Lamassu defence system, all spearheaded by the brilliant @yli18smc.bsky.social with her beautiful structures! Teamwork makes the dream work!

Stephan Gruber@gruberlab.bsky.social · last yr.

Glad to share the work of @yli18smc.bsky.social and co on Lamassu, a bacterial defense system related to Rad50/Mre11 (RM). While RM carefully trims DNA ends for repair, Lamassu chops up the host chromosome. Our study reveals how it is regulated to minimize damage, activating only during infection.

Happy to have helped out with this!

Stephan Gruber@gruberlab.bsky.social · last yr.

Happy to share the beautiful structure of a Wadjet SMC complex by @roisnehamelinf.bsky.social, with support from the DCI and @drhonsworth.bsky.social ! This is a type II Wadjet with unique characteristics including a tandem KITE subunit, distinct coiled coil architecture and a deviant hinge.

First preprint 📢 on bsky: New work on the Wadjet defence system by @roisnehamelinf.bsky.social & @drhonsworth.bsky.social revealing beautiful & exciting structures of JET on plasmid DNA. With loop extrusion, obstacles, DNA bending, kinking, cleavage 🦠🧫 🧪 t.co/RaO7IO3zDk  With help from @DCI_Lausanne