Moamen Elmassry

@elmassry.bsky.social

Postdoc in the Donia Lab at Princeton University

Over the past 50 years, we have learned much about how transcription factors and other DNA-binding proteins search for their targets, but we know much less about how sequence-specific RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) search for their targets. 🧵⤵️ (1/26)

LIMmunity 2nd brew: Motherhood comes with superpower: pathogen protection! 🤰🤱 www.nature.com/articles/s41... We often think moms are immunologically vulnerable during reproduction to tolerate the baby. But I always wondered: why would evolution make such a critical period of life so dangerous?

Eosinophils drive intestinal remodelling and innate defence in reproduction - Nature

From pregnancy until lactation, eosinophils accumulate in the small intestine where they regulate goblet cell fate and enhance innate defences against enteric pathogens.

nature.com

Here is an important BLAST tip. TL;DR: Always search both Nucleotide collection (nt) AND RefSeq Genome (refseq_genomes) databases— don't rely on just one. I BLASTed ~10,000 nucleotide sequences (mostly gut microbiome-derived sequences) against both NCBI databases and here's what I found:

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SO EXCITED to share our recent work on dietary zinc deficiency worsening Acinetobacter baumannii pneumonia, out today with @natureportfolio.bsky.social!! Surprisingly, this is due at least in part to the allergic-type cytokine IL-13. SharedIt link: rdcu.be/d0h4h Eat your zinc rich foods! 🦪🫘🧀🥩🥜

Dietary zinc deficiency promotes Acinetobacter baumannii lung infection via IL-13 in mice

Nature Microbiology - Increased IL-13 drives increased bacterial dissemination and mortality following Acinetobacter baumannii lung infection of zinc-deficient mice and can be countered by...

rdcu.be