Viruses have parasites too. Our new preprint shows how phages use VIPR to silence parasitic satellites, and how the satellites fight back with its own decoy VIPR RNAs that redirect VIPR to DNA REP elements in the host genome!! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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

Happy to see our work on the evolution of antiviral repertoires in P4-like satellites and their P2-like helper phages (check out the 🧵 👇) out in @narjournal.bsky.social 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/nar/... #phagesky #MicroSky #evosky

Shuttling, swapping, and mixing: the rapid modular evolution of antiviral repertoires in temperate phages and their satellites

Abstract. Interactions between bacteria, bacteriophages, and their satellites are shaped by a myriad of defence and counter-defence mechanisms. Here, we id

doi.org

Some of the smallest 😎 viruses on Earth are all around us. Three or four genes 😍 each, in nearly every environment. We keep finding thousands by sequencing, yet don't know who they infect, can't easily isolate them, or even how the few we have infect a cell. Our new preprint takes this on 🧵👇

Come work with @viromehunter.bsky.social and myself at UBC! We have a postdoctoral position available for someone with an interest in bioinformatics and genomics, using sociovirology to understand disease dynamics in plant viruses. Advert: ppvlab.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2026/0...

Why did some #viruses evolve to be #giants while others did not? Our perspective piece on this topic with Eugene Koonin. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Why did some viruses evolve to be giants while others did not? | PNAS

Viruses are ubiquitous mobile genetic elements that are obligate symbionts of cellular life forms and replicate exclusively within host cells. The ...

pnas.org

🚨 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

Please share! We are looking for a PhD student excited about gene transfer, and tackling Antimicrobial Resistance in Klebsiella pneumoniae. 🧬 More details & applications on funder website by 21st Oct 👇🏻 gw4biomed.ac.uk/developing-c...

Excited to share that our paper on Horizontal Gene Transfer is now out in its final form in @gigascience.bsky.social! 🥳 By analysing 163 high-quality ant genomes, we show that HGT from bacteria is widespread across the ants and likely has adaptive functions! doi.org/10.1093/giga... 🐜📸: Alex Wild

Thrilled to share my first paper out of grad school. We sequenced dental wastewater (yes, the stuff collected during teeth cleaning) and found previously unknown bacteriophages harbored in the human mouth. #phagesky #microsky 🧵 journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Dental wastewater reveals a hidden reservoir of oral bacteriophage diversity | Microbiology Spectrum

The human oral cavity contains a diverse microbial community, but the bacteriophages (phages) that infect many oral bacteria remain poorly characterized. This gap limits our understanding of how phage...

journals.asm.org

I’ve officially resigned as Associate Editor for Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience. It used to be a reputable journal, but became a case study in how forced automation destroys academic integrity. 👇

🧵 New preprint out! We asked: what happens to gut bacteria when the intestine is under chronic inflammation (IBD)? Turns out, the host's inflammatory state reshapes how they evolve, and the results are pretty striking. A thread 👇

Horizontal gene transfer is often depicted as a process distributing pre-existing functions to novel genetic backgrounds. Yet HGT can also increase the rate of functional innovation after transfer. Here's a brief review on the topic: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v... #evosky #microsky

➡️ preprint from the lab! Bacteria have loads of antiviral defences in their mobile genetic elements (MGEs). So when MGEs move between bacteria, the defences move with them, generating a fast turnover of defences in bacteria. But what about the antiviral defence turnover in the MGEs themselves? 🤔 🧵👇

New preprint out on bioRxiv! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Can conjugative plasmids be used to control plasmid and pathogen spread? Follow me down the rabbit hole that led to this story 🧵

Bacteria chromosomes contain Genomic Islands that provide virulence, antibiotic resistance, MGE-defence,... They transfer between cells, but the mechanism of most remains elusive. Here we explore the conjugative capacity of these mysterious Genomic Islands. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New paper from the lab, the mysteries involving the genetic elements that move by being mobilized by other MGEs. Hitcher Genetic Elements are distinctive, ancient and diverse. ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

New from the lab. We were stuck studying plasmid mobility because we ignored most origins of transfer by conjugation. Using the occurrences of known oriT, we developed a method to find novel unrelated families. Works well. We now cover most conjugative plasmids of E coli, K pneumo & A baumannii.

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

Identification of novel origins of transfer across bacterial plasmids https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.30.577996v1