Hermoine Venter
@hjvsci.bsky.social
Microbiologist 🦠🧫 at the University of Tromsø 🇿🇦🇳🇴 Bacterial defence systems, phages, evoultion 🤓
We’re so excited to share our new paper, where we tackle the wealth of structural and functional diversity of anti-phage sensors across bacteria (1/6)
Nature@nature.com · last wk.Nature research paper: Diverse bacterial pattern recognition receptors sense the core phage proteome go.nature.com/45fpXCZ
Glad to have this out in the world 🤓 If you want to genetically modify Staphylococcus haemolyticus, you have to dodge its phage defence systems! 🧬🧫 www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...
Genetic engineering of Staphylococcus haemolyticus: overcoming restriction-modification barriers and targeting virulence genes
Staphylococcus haemolyticus is an emerging multidrug-resistant nosocomial pathogen noted for robust biofilm formation and complex restriction-modification (RM) systems that hinder genetic manipulation...
microbiologyresearch.org
Some bacteria use the CRISPR/Cas systems as transcriptional repressors of other anti-phage systems, such that when CRISPR interfered with, gene expression of repressed anti-phage systems goes up www.nature.com/articles/s41...
CRISPR–Cas regulates expression of embedded anti-phage defence systems - Nature
CRISPR–Cas systems transcriptionally tune diverse innate defences using CRISPR RNA-like guides to balance antiviral protection with fitness, and hyperactivate these defences when compromised, establis...
nature.com
1/4 Every good defence needs a backup! 🛡️⚔ Out now in @natrevmicro.nature.com our Comment on "𝗶𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝗳𝗲𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴"! 🎉 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Immune safeguarding as a conserved principle of antiviral defence - Nature Reviews Microbiology
All organisms defend against viral infections through active immunity mechanisms that clear the virus or population-level mechanisms that cause regulated cell death. Recent research increasingly shows...
nature.com
A family of lanthipeptides with anti-phage function Discovery of 2,000+ lanthipeptide biosynthetic gene clusters with anti-phage potential. Lanthivirins inhibit phage replication by targeting phage proteins & interfering with phage DNA replication. www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...
A family of lanthipeptides with anti-phage function
Shomar, Guillaume, et al. report the genomics-driven discovery of a family of more than 2,000 lanthipeptide biosynthetic gene clusters with anti-phage potential. They experimentally demonstrate anti-p...
cell.com
Bacteriophage continue to have so much to teach us. It's in our interest to understand how they work and impact human & environmental health. New joint work led by @mariandm.bsky.social & @rantahan.bsky.social inferring single-cell latent period & burst size heterogeneity from population dynamics.
Inferring single-cell heterogeneity of bacteriophage lysis-associated life-history traits from population-scale dynamics
Theory-guided experiments reveal single-cell heterogeneity of lysis-associated bacteriophage traits from population scale data.
science.org
False solutions to the environmental crises are plentiful and you can usually identify them quickly by how little they disrupt economic industry or ask for any meaningful change. You can’t solve a leaky pipe without turning off the water first.
David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈@whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 3w agoWhen I was writing this piece about the Ocean Cleanup, I had a surreal experience: They assured me that they only kill invasive species, and sent me a published paper to demonstrate that. But the paper said the opposite! I wonder how many journalists just took their word for it and didn't check?
Presenting a poster at the Viruses of Microbes conference! This was the work of our Master's student @Marriam Aslam. We tried phage trainimg to make phage Mystique a better killer...She wasn't really into it 😅
Context is important. Especially for microbiologists.
Latest work from my lab, in which @amycrobes.bsky.social probes the evolutionary consequences of prophages potentiating death at otherwise sublethal antibiotic doses
Amy Zamora@amycrobes.bsky.social · last mo.We're excited to share our work on how prophages influence the evolution of resistance against DNA-damaging antibiotics! This has been a fun project with @sianowen.bsky.social, @baym.lol, @theshreyaspai.bsky.social, @kepatitis-c.bsky.social, & @fernpizza.bsky.social biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/
#microsky #phagesky #phage #synbio www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Synthetically designed anti-defense proteins overcome barriers to bacterial transformation and phage infection - Nature Communications
Bacterial defense systems act as barriers to phage infection and plasmid transformation. Here, Garb et al. designed synthetic proteins that disable bacterial defense systems, enabling phages to infect...
nature.com
From my time with @jbdsf.bsky.social: Our latest CBASS story is now published! ‘CBASS’ is the ancestral origin of anti-viral cGAS immunity and encoded in diverse bacteria. For the first time, we show that CBASS enables cell survival (vs cell death) to protect bacteria from phage infection. More ⬇️
Cell Host & Microbe@cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social · last mo.CBASS limits phage at no expense A CBASS type encoding a phospholipase (CapV) effector limits the late stage of phage replication while maintaining Pseudomonas aeruginosa cell viability. CBASS limits packaged phage DNA, reducing virion production www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...
#microsky #phagesky AF3 models of Klebsiella #phage RBPs. This was done for coliphages and (to a lesser extent) phages against A. baumannii. Field heating up! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Structural modularity of receptor-binding proteins underlies host-range strategy diversification in Klebsiella pneumoniae phages
Bacteriophage receptor-binding proteins (RBPs) determine bacterial host recognition and are central to phage host-range evolution, yet the structural principles governing how RBPs diversify and expand...
biorxiv.org
Cheap and easy method for nanopore sequencing phage DNA directly from plaques. Proud of lab members Brenna and Patrick for doing this work *with absolutely no help from me* !! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Same-day tagmentation PCR-based whole genome sequencing of bacteriophage genomes from a single plaque without DNA extraction - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Same-day tagmentation PCR-based whole genome sequencing of bacteriophage genomes from a single plaque without DNA extraction
nature.com
We studied the causes of #collateralsensitivity from a single enzyme perspective using and how stable such #tradeoffs are during #coselection. In short, resistance evolution can cause strong but migigatable trade-offs. Preproof is now available on @JMB: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Mechanistic origins and evolutionary erosion of collateral sensitivity in a β-lactamase
As antibiotic discovery stalls, exploiting collateral sensitivity, where resistance to one drug increases sensitivity to another, offers a promising r…
sciencedirect.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41... #phage #phagesky #microsky
Phage-assisted evolution of allosteric protein switches - Nature Communications
Allostery enables proteins to respond to signals but remains difficult to engineer. Here, Southern et al. developed a phage-assisted evolution framework for allosteric protein switches yielding high-p...
nature.com
Epigenetic regulation in prokaryotes: transcriptional and phenotypic outcomes of DNA methyltransferase activity | FEMS Microbiology Reviews | Oxford Academic https://academic.oup.com/femsre/advance-article/doi/10.1093/femsre/fuag014/8539711?login=true
Epigenetic regulation in prokaryotes: transcriptional and phenotypic outcomes of DNA methyltransferase activity
This review shows how DNA methylation acts as a regulatory layer in bacteria and archaea, shaping diverse biological traits and behaviours.
dx.doi.org
You need a name to yell at instruments when they misbehave! And also to tell them when they have done a good job of course 😅🔬
An instrument named Cannoli - Nature Methods
Plenty of scientists give their instruments nicknames, chosen with affection and for good reasons.
nature.com
Nucleoid-associated proteins sense phage-induced genome damage to elicit abortive infection https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.06.716658v1
Our current understanding of the Metis defense system - carved in wood By @naamalila.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🦠 “𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘃𝗶𝗿𝘂𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝘀𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘂𝘀 — 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗵𝗼𝘄?” Historian @kirchhelle.bsky.social chats with 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗵𝗮 𝗖𝗹𝗼𝗸𝗶𝗲 & 𝗝𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗘𝗯𝗱𝗲𝗻 about revival of phage biology & phage therapy as antibiotics fail. 🎧 2024 BBC Radio 4 — listen worldwide: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... #phage #phagesky #microsky
In Our Time - Bacteriophages - BBC Sounds
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how viruses can help us track and cure bacterial illnesses
bbc.co.uk
Today is my first day joining @ellinoralseth.bsky.social in the Alseth lab! Excited to get started working with Acinetobacter baumanii and its phage Mystique🦠🧪🤓 #PhageSky
Very timely review; thank Alex Hong and @jbdsf.bsky.social for putting this together journals.plos.org/plospathogen...
It’s not me, it’s you: Anti-phage nuclease specificity inside a bacterium
journals.plos.org
📣new preprint from the phagefoundry.org team 🎉 Jessica Trinh and Catherine Mageeney (Sandia National Laboratories)!! Systematic analysis of prophages from ~1000 Acinetobacter baumannii isolates, induction & screening. We found this 😎 looking phage with bunch of 💍💍
bioRxiv Microbiology@biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · 6mo agoDiscovery, induction, and screening of prophages in clinical Acinetobacter baumannii isolates https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.16.706188v1
How do bacterial pangenomes evolve, what controls their dynamics, why do they exist? Fitting a mechanistic model to 450 species from allthebacteria.org suggesting fast vs slow gene exchange (i.e. amount of MGEs) is a major differentiating factor, correlated with phylogeny rather than lifestyle
Sam Horsfield@samuelhorsfield.bsky.social · 6mo agoAt long last, my final PhD chapter is out: we developed a novel evolutionary simulator of bacterial pangenomes, Pansim, fitting it to data from >600K genomes using a likelihood-free framework, PopPUNK-mod, to explore neutral and adaptive pangenome dynamics www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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
After many challenges along the way, I am happy to say our work on evading RM systems to transform Staphylococcus haemolyticus is now out as a preprint! 🦠 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #microsky
biorxiv.org
Heroic work by @bluebirdsjunk.bsky.social in pulling this mammoth study together 'Staphylococcus haemolyticus Population Genomics Provides Insights into Pathogenicity and Commensalism' www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Staphylococcus haemolyticus Population Genomics Provides Insights into Pathogenicity and Commensalism
Staphylococcus haemolyticus is a common commensal bacterium but also an opportunistic pathogen, frequently implicated in bacteraemia and sepsis in preterm neonates and immunocompromised patients. Desp...
biorxiv.org
