Sam Hobbs and Philip Kranzusch show how CBASS defense systems sense phage proteases to initiate the immune response in bacteria. The bacterial cGAS becomes activated when cleaved by the phage protease. Nice!

Kranzusch Lab@kranzuschlab.bsky.social · last wk.

Our story with @hobbslabutah.bsky.social discovering CBASS sensing of phage proteases out now in @science.org New data include CBASS recognition of diverse proteases beyond T4, and verifying CD-NTase activation loop cleavage as the trigger for defense in vivo www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

We have a new branch in the family tree of animals: Atreyea- a previously unrecognized lineage among the closest unicell relatives of animals. Led by @konsmitsi.bsky.social & @freejakoba.bsky.social together with a fantastic team of collaborators. 🔗 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... #protistsOnSky

Super excited to share my postdoctoral work at @imbavienna.bsky.social @viennabiocenter.bsky.social - We discovered that some retrotransposons, or "jumping genes" 🧬, are able to spread from cell to cell via a new viral infectivity route. A short thread: 🧵👇 (1/7)

Two preprints both out today identifying *different* reverse transcriptase systems associated with arrays reminiscent of CRISPR/Cas, encoded by different phage. One from Anthropic and one from Stanford. Worth pointing out that the Stanford work clearly began earlier, and has more wetlab follow-up:

Arc Institute@arcinstitute.org · 3w ago

Many important bacterial non-coding RNAs and structural elements remain undiscovered. To help, David Li, Garyk Brixi, Michael Fischbach, @brianhie.bsky.social & team introduce Minerva, which uses a genome language model to predict RNA base pairing, repeats, & other interactions from sequence alone.

New paper from the lab, out in Nature Microbiology. We ran CRISPRi screens to ask what genes E. coli needs in order to live in a gut and what this can tell us about the gut environment itself. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-026-02471-8

We got an ERC StG! 🥳🎉 Huge thank you to all the people who helped us get here. Five years to explore some Qs we’re very excited about! 🧬🔬

European Research Council (ERC)@erc.europa.eu · last mo.

📣 Good news! 📣 Results of the ERC 2026 Starting Grant call are out! Funding worth a total of €705 million will go to 421 early-career researchers across Europe. Discover who, what and where 👉 link.europa.eu/9M3MmN 🧪 #ERCStG #FrontierResearch #HorizonEurope 🇪🇺 @scienceinnovation.ec.europa.eu

🚨 We are excited to share the first preprint of our lab ! We discovered an NADase enzymatic domain in bacterial immunity and in the human protein TEP1. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A widespread NADase domain links bacterial immunity with human TEP1

Recent discoveries on bacterial immunity have revealed that several protein domains involved in anti-phage defense are conserved in eukaryotes, such as SIRim, TIR, PNP and gasdermin. Bacterial immune ...

biorxiv.org

How diverse is bacterial immunity ? We report in @science.org how language models allowed us to predict 2.4M antiphage proteins spanning >23K novel potential systems. 👏 @emordret.bsky.social, @alexhv.bsky.social & al doi.org/10.1126/scie... Explore them here defensefinder.mdmlab.fr/wiki/refseq_...

Machine learning models by the Bernheim and Laub labs vastly expand the predicted space of bacterial immunity, demonstrating that we are still at the beginning of our exploration 🔎 Congrats @mdmlab.bsky.social and @pdeweirdt.bsky.social et al!

Nature@nature.com · 6mo ago

Bacteria have been fighting off viruses using a huge arsenal of molecular weaponry that scientists did not know about — until now. Researchers have identified proteins that could lead to virus-fighting drugs and technologies. go.nature.com/4dqQnXI

Aude Bernheim @audeber.bsky.social and Eugene Koonin discuss one of most interesting questions in the field connecting bacterial and animal immunity! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The paradox of immune systems conservation between prokaryotes and eukaryotes - Nature Reviews Microbiology

The widespread prokaryotic immune systems, in particular restriction–modification, CRISPR–Cas and defensive toxin–antitoxin systems, are absent in eukaryotes, whereas relatively rare ones, such as Arg...

nature.com

Join us at the 2026 GRC Microbial Stress Response to be held on July 19th-24th at Mount Holyoke College!! Here is the link for more information: www.grc.org/microbial-st...

Great new story from Sophie Helaine and Molly Sargen! www.helainelab.com

BejaLabTechnion@bejalab.bsky.social · 9mo ago

A prophage-encoded abortive infection protein preserves host and prophage spread www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨 Hiring Alert! 🚨My lab at Institut Pasteur is recruiting several Postdocs! We have exciting open projects in: 🦠 Synthetic Biology and🛡️ Bacterial Immunity. Come do great science with us in the middle of Paris! 🇫🇷🥐 research.pasteur.fr/en/job/postd...

Postdoctoral position - Synthetic Biology / Bacterial Immunity - Research

The Bikard lab at Institut Pasteur in Paris is seeking to hire postdoctoral researchers. We are investigating bacteria / bacteriophages interactions, and the genetic innovation that happens at this in...

research.pasteur.fr

📢 Recruitment of an Associate Professor (Maître de conférences) in Bacteriology at CIRI and ENS de Lyon. Research at @ciri-lyon.bsky.social @francoisrousset.bsky.social @labxc.bsky.social Anti-phage Immunity, Horizontal gene/ MGE transfer 📚 Teaching at ENS de Lyon within the Department of Biology.

1/9 Metagenomics lets us read microbiomes in nature without cultivation, but writing (editing) them in their native context is still a major challenge. Meet MetaEdit: a platform for pathway-scale metagenomic editing inside the gut microbiome. science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Metagenomic editing of commensal bacteria in vivo using CRISPR-associated transposases

Although metagenomic sequencing has revealed a rich microbial biodiversity in the mammalian gut, methods to genetically alter specific species in the microbiome are highly limited. Here, we introduce ...

science.org

Excited to share the work that’s been on my mind for the past 2 years, now on bioRxiv! Led with Matt Walker, and my first project in the Sternberg Lab . Check it out ⬇️ tinyurl.com/mshwjd77

Temperate phages enhance host fitness via RNA-guided flagellar remodeling

Bacterial flagella drive motility and chemotaxis while also playing critical roles in host-pathogen interactions, as their oligomeric subunit, flagellin, is specifically recognized by the mammalian im...

tinyurl.com

1/16 New pre-print from the Sternberg Lab! We uncover how temperate phages can use RNA-guided transcription factors to remodel the flagellar composition of their bacterial host and enhance their fitness. Find the preprint and full story here: tinyurl.com/mshwjd77

Our paper is published back2back with one from @amazeld.bsky.social and @epcrocha.bsky.social labs where @baptistedarracq.bsky.social, @eloilittner.bsky.social and co. show that Sedentary Chromosomal Integrons are biobanks of phage defense systems. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Sedentary chromosomal integrons as biobanks of bacterial antiphage defense systems

Integrons are genetic systems that drive bacterial adaptation by acquiring, expressing, and shuffling gene cassettes. While mobile integrons are well known for spreading antibiotic resistance genes, t...

science.org

Please repost: Postdoc position in antibiotic discovery in a large multidisciplinary project combining high-throughput approaches, microscopy, AI, and hit-to-lead optimization at @umontreal.ca and @mila-quebec.bsky.social. Apply to ML.Antibiotics@gmail.com. See lnkd.in/dVVk4N3s. #microsky

Viral coat proteins are perceived by the RING1–IBR–RING2-type ubiquitin ligase (RBRL) #PlantSci #Ubiquitin #proteostasis www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Perception of viral infections and initiation of antiviral defence in rice - Nature

Viral coat proteins are perceived by the RING1–IBR–RING2-type ubiquitin ligase, initiating the first step of the natural antiviral response in rice.

nature.com

hello world

And its out! New paper for #integron aficionados. We found gene-less cassettes in superintegrons that express/silence other cassettes in the array. Here is a 🧵(if I know how to do this in Bluesky...😆) academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

Identification of promoter activity in gene-less cassettes from Vibrionaceae superintegrons

Abstract. Integrons are genetic platforms that acquire new genes encoded in integron cassettes (ICs), building arrays of adaptive functions. ICs generally encod

academic.oup.com