Happy to share the first preprint out of the Nomburg lab! Many aspects of cellular immunity are shared across the tree of life. Here, we show that some of these conserved aspects of cellular immunity are mirrored by conserved effectors of immune antagonism. Thread below! 1/15

bioRxiv Microbiology@biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · 3w ago

Conserved folds enable immune antagonism across the tree of life https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.21.739742v1

RNA can build. A short RNA self-assembles into a 60-subunit icosahedral cage like a viral capsid, but made entirely of RNA. The striking preprint also reveals a 57-nt RNA filament at ~2.7 Å. Congratulations, Lin Huang and colleagues! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

ArchaeaHQ brings: • 21.6k+ genomes across all 4 kingdoms (Asgard, DPANN, TACK, Euryarchaeota) • High quality: ≥70% completeness, ≤10% contamination • 74.8% MAGs & 25.2% isolates • Environmental & geographic metadata included! Data: doi.org/10.6084/m9.f... Code: github.com/Pedrolleao/g... (2/2)

A CRISPR knockout mouse library for functional genomics in influenza research @cellcellpress.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Non-cyclic dinucleotide STING agonists abrogate MPXV infection https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.08.730963v1

STOP using ipTM for #AlphaFold PPI screens. * Artificially LOW when both full-length proteins have irrelevant, non-binding IDRs/domains. * If one protein is folded & other contains irrelevant IDRs or domains, the score is too HIGH bc of d0. * Use ipSAE or LIS. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

(1/6) Thrilled to share this story! In our preprint from my PhD in the @kranzuschlab.bsky.social, with help from the Hatfull lab and @soreklab.bsky.social, we discover RyDEP, a phage-encoded RyR-domain glycosidase that allows phages to evade Thoeris defense. Highlights below! doi.org/10.64898/202...

🚨After 4 fantastic years in the Sorek lab @soreklab.bsky.social, I’ll be starting my own group at EMBL @embl.org bl.org Hamburg. www.embl.org/groups/oster... Metabolism-driven immunity: phages, metabolites, and discovery of new enzymes, molecules, and pathways 🦠🧬

Exciting paper! - www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-8...

With Eugene Koonin, we wrote a rather comprehensive review on the origin, evolution and organization of the #virosphere. We describe all 10 viral realms and the logic behind them, and so much more. Check it out! comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/biologies/ar...

Bacterial immune proteins have repeatedly evolved to become parts of eukaryotic immunity. But how? Our new preprint uncovers a recent horizontal transfer event & shows how eukaryotes co-opted a toxic bacterial immune protein 🦠🧪🧵 1/

Out Now! Nuclease–NTPase antiphage defence systems use conserved molecular features to control bacterial immunity #MicroSky

Nuclease–NTPase antiphage defence systems use conserved molecular features to control bacterial immunity

Nature Microbiology, Published online: 27 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41564-026-02312-8A large-scale, comparative cell biology and biochemical screen defines the molecular features controlling antiphage defence systems that encode nuclease effectors and accessory NTPase proteins.

go.nature.com

🎉Excited to share our new preprint! TIR domains from diverse animals, including human TLR4, are catalytically active and produce cyclic ADP-ribose (cADPR). This enzymatic activity is widespread in animals and conserved across the tree of life. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Those amazing #phages 🦠 figured out 5mC chemistry before we did: 📄 Out today in @MolecularCell we describe a 5mC-selective #deaminase family in environmental phage genomes with broad applications for #5base #sequencing #epigenetics #DNAmethylation #genomics #NGS 🧬🧪 www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Happy to share our new work on how phages escape bacterial immunity. We show that a phage homing endonuclease drives segmental amplification of anti-defense genes, pointing to a versatile and rapid mode of adaptation. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #PhageSky #MicroSky

Phage homing endonuclease amplifies anti-defense genes to evade bacterial immunity - Nature Communications

Phages employ diverse counter-defense strategies to overcome bacterial immune systems. Here, the authors reveal that the phage homing nuclease SegB facilitates immune evasion by promoting the segmenta...

nature.com

📣Huge preprint 🔔 Today we share something our group has been working toward for a long time, led by @lucasmoriniere.bsky.social We asked can we predict which receptor a phage targets from its genome sequence alone? For most phages, we couldn’t. So Lucas set out to do something I had only dreamed of.

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_...

How do you kill a MRSA superbug armed with 15 different anti-phage defense systems? You make a smarter phage. Check out our latest preprint on overcoming bacterial immunity using defense-guided engineering to build durable therapeutic phage cocktails! Led by Sarah Voss. doi.org/10.64898/202...

Happy to share the final version of my postdoc work on bacterial CBASS immunity with @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social published in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

Bacterial 2′,3′-cGAMP activates a SAVED effector to form membrane-disrupting filaments and restrict phage replication

Tak et al. discover that bacteria use 2′,3′-cGAMP, the same signaling molecule employed by mammalian cGAS-STING, for phage defense. In response to phage, 2′,3′-cGAMP activates filament formation of Ca...

cell.com

Bittersweet moment to give special thanks to the late Kiyoshi Nagai and former colleague for developing the yeast expression system that we made use of in this work.

I love this concept -- plasmid to Cryo structure in a day! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New preprint: Cyclic tri-adenylate signalling by a Panoptes anti-phage guard system with a CARF-TM effector. Great work led by Sabine Grüschow www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Cyclic tri-adenylate signalling by a Panoptes anti-phage guard system with a CARF-TM effector https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.13.711614v1

I'm hiring a postgrad, a great position for someone looking for a few years of training before applying to grad school! Come join us and learn microbiology, protein purification, and mucosal immunology: postdocs.yale.edu/posts/2026-0...

The Trojan Horse is real, and it’s microscopic! 🐴🦠 Our paper is out today in @cellcellpress.bsky.social! We discovered that deltaviruses physically hide INSIDE helper viruses to sneak into new cells. And to prove it, we had to image them from every angle. 🧵👇 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Deltaviruses spread through a viral Trojan Horse

Hepatitis D-like satellite viruses, known as deltaviruses, have been recently discovered in a wide range of animals. These viruses are thought to expr…

sciencedirect.com

🚨Preprint! Happy to share the research from my PhD “Genome delivery of a contractile tailed phage and its superinfection exclusion mechanism”. We use cryoEM to study the genome ejection of the phage T4, revealing how the tape measure protein regulates the process. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

CBASS is a cyclic nucleotide-based antiviral system in bacteria that is related to cGAS-STING signaling in animals. One of the big questions is how CBASS is activated during phage infection? We made some progress on this during my final year in the Kranzusch lab. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Out today: We discovered new viral proteins that target immune signaling molecules, solely based on their AlphaFold-predicted shapes www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Congrats Nitzan Tal and coauthors! Thank you Kranzusch lab for the fun collaboration! Linking below previous thread on our findings

Structural modeling reveals phage proteins that manipulate bacterial immune signaling

Immune systems in animals, plants, and bacteria often rely on intracellular nucleotide signaling, which viruses can block by sequestering or degrading these signals. We identified structural and bioph...

science.org

Nitzan Tal@nitzantal.bsky.social · last yr.

📢Preprint out! Excited to share my final work from the @soreklab.bsky.social! We mined phage dark matter using structural features shared by anti-defense proteins (viral tools that help phages bypass bacterial immunity) to guide discovery. Found 3 new families targeting immune signaling!

📢Preprint out! Excited to share my final work from the @soreklab.bsky.social! We mined phage dark matter using structural features shared by anti-defense proteins (viral tools that help phages bypass bacterial immunity) to guide discovery. Found 3 new families targeting immune signaling!

In our latest work, we characterise the Tmn defence system. We reveal plasmolysis as a new way to block phage infection, dramatically reducing secondary infections.