Eukaryotic-like microtubules and dynamic instability of Asgard archaeal tubulins www.science.org/doi/full/10....
Stephan Köstlbacher
@stephkoe.bsky.social
Scientific Computing Specialist @ AITHYRA Opinions are my own he/him
Preprint alert: the final two chapters of my thesis are out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Bacteriocins in archaea and archaeocins in bacteria: a computational journey into the search for weaponry borrowed from another domain of life. A short 🧵
Bacteriocins in archaea and archaeocins in bacteria
Archaea and bacteria routinely live side by side in microbial communities and must interact at least on occasion. Whether such cross-Domain interactions are dominated by mutual disregard, co-operation...
biorxiv.org
Discovery of a Turing reaction-diffusion system in Archaea! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
A self-organized geometry sensing oscillator spatially regulates cell division in archaea
Cell division must be tightly regulate in time and space. Many bacteria and eukaryotes employ geometry sensing systems to regulate cell division spatiotemporally. However, how archaea ensure they divi...
biorxiv.org
Eukaryotic-like microtubules and dynamic instability of Asgard archaeal tubulins www.science.org/doi/full/10.... #jcampubs
Eukaryotic-like microtubules and dynamic instability of Asgard archaeal tubulins
Asgard archaeal mini microtubules suggest an archaeal origin of eukaryotic microtubules.
science.org
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 · 2w agoConserved folds enable immune antagonism across the tree of life https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.21.739742v1
Systematic identification of cell division proteins in haloarchaea and the discovery of a membrane anchor for the Z ring. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Systematic identification of cell division proteins in haloarchaea and the discovery of a membrane anchor for the Z ring
Most archaea rely on the tubulin-like protein FtsZ for division. In the last decade, several novel cell division proteins have been discovered in the model haloarchaeon Haloferax volcanii which contai...
biorxiv.org
Systematic identification of cell division proteins in haloarchaea and the discovery of a membrane anchor for the Z ring https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.16.738847v1
Excited to share our new preprint led by Fred and me in collaboration with the archaeal community! We found that the molecular foundation of histone-based chromatin has pre-eukaryotic roots in Asgard archaea. (1/4) #ArchaeaSky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Emergence of histone-based chromatin complexity in Asgard archaea
The emergence of the eukaryotes coincided with the diversification of histone proteins and their post-translational modifications by enzymes that constitute the core of eukaryotic chromatin. Yet the e...
biorxiv.org
I'm happy to announce the release of GlobDB r232! This version contains 346,233 bacterial and archaeal genomes, based on 26 datasets. More info globdb.org 🦠🖥️🧬
home | GlobDB
globdb.org
Super excited to share my first paper from my PhD in the @dodonova-sveta.bsky.social lab. We visualise how chromatin from archaeal cells is organised using cryo-ET and SPA. Big thanks to everyone involved in this project!
Svetlana Dodonova@dodonova-sveta.bsky.social · 2mo agoExcited to share our new preprint! 🧬❄️ by brilliant @mdreimann.bsky.social and great collaborators! Using cryo-ET&EM, we reveal archaeal chromatin in a near-native state: variable-beads-on-a-string fibers shaped by growth phase and histone composition #ArchaeaSky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Archaea the hornets of the microbial world. Discuss. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... TLDR: Archaeon kills bacterium with secreted phospholipase. Pretty nifty way to kill bacteria if you are a microbe with a very different lipid make-up, I reckon. No need to worry about accidentally killing yourself.
A Bactericidal Phospholipase from Archaea
Archaea kill bacteria, at least on occasion. The molecular underpinnings of these lethal interactions are barely understood. Here, we describe cinquedea, an α/β hydrolase secreted by the halophilic ar...
biorxiv.org
Eukaryogenesis was about more than a proteobacterium hitching a lift with an archaeon. Genes from other kinds of bacteria came along for the ride, stitched together with viruses. Paper in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Gene ancestries reveal diverse microbial associations during eukaryogenesis - Nature
Phylogenomic reconstruction of the proteome of the last eukaryotic common ancestor sheds light on the origin of eukaryotes, indicating an important role of horizontal transfer of genes from diverse ba...
nature.com
Chromatin organization in Asgard archaea: histones, SMC complexes, and the archaeal roots of eukaryotic chromatin: Trends in Genetics www.cell.com/trends/genet... New review by @jvhooff.bsky.social & @damelab.bsky.social
Chromatin organization in Asgard archaea: histones, SMC complexes, and the archaeal roots of eukaryotic chromatin
The genomes of organisms across the tree of life are structurally and functionally organized into chromatin. In eukaryotes, within an organelle called the nucleus, chromatin is shaped by histones and ...
cell.com
Can vouch! I worked a lot with Dani and he's one of the most thoughtful, generous scientists I know. If you're into archaea and want a PI who invests in his people (and yes, the cake breaks are real), apply. You won't regret it.
Daniel Tamarit@danieltamarit.bsky.social · 3mo agoI'm looking for an enthusiastic student to join my team as a PhD candidate on archaeal genome evolution 🦠💻 Work in beautiful Utrecht, at @binfutrecht.bsky.social, an international group full of caring, amazing scientists, and with frequent cake breaks! www.uu.nl/en/organisat... Please share! 🙏
Excited to say that my new paper with @maxlechte.bsky.social (and others not on bluesky) has come out in @nature.com! Study of sediments, geochemistry and fossils from rocks 1.75 to 1.4 billion years old indicate that the oldest known #eukaryotes were aerobic and benthic! #protists rdcu.be/fjNgL
Early fossil eukaryotes were benthic aerobes
Nature - Integrated palaeontological, sedimentological and geochemical analyses of ancient rocks from Australia show that early eukaryotes were largely restricted to oxygenated benthic habitats,...
rdcu.be
New preprint! Cell division has to happen at the right place but how Archaea pick that place is unknown. We now identified a three-protein system, Dip, that positions the divisome at midcell in H. volcanii and is broadly conserved across Archaea. A thread 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
🧵 New pre-print out from my time at @mib-wur.bsky.social showing how the titration of the initiator protein DnaA on the chromosome of E. coli can generate stable DNA replication @hohlbeinlab.bsky.social @nicoc-micsynmet.bsky.social doi.org/10.64898/202...
Do biofilms give an ecological advantage? Yes! A fantastic follow-up to our previous biofilm work in ammonia-oxidizing archaea: "Biofilm Lifestyle Drives Ecophysiological Niche Expansion in an Archaeal Soil Nitrifier" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Congratulations to all authors! #archaea
We are excited to share a new preprint from Dimitris Dalkidis that identifies the effects of inhibitors DMPP and ATU in ammonia-oxidizing archaea! #archaea "Common nitrification inhibitors exhibit varied physiological mechanisms on an ammonia-oxidizing microorganism" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
How do mitochondrial ribosomes keep pace with membrane insertion? Now out in NSMB: We show that mitoribosomes slow down at defined positions linked to membrane insertion and protein topology: rdcu.be/fhqIT #Mitochondria #Ribosome #CryoEM
Membrane insertion of mitochondrial-encoded proteins regulates ribosome decoding speed
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology - Schöndorf and Petrychenko et al. show that mitochondrial translation speed is coupled to OXA1L-mediated inner membrane insertion, with...
rdcu.be
Happy to share our latest paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Great collaboration with @ifremer.bsky.social, @cbitoulouse.bsky.social & @pasteur.fr. Studying stress in P. abyssi with near-native, minimally purified ribosomes, we identified HibA, a new hibernation factor widespread in Archaea.
Excited to share our discovery of a new programmable RNA-guided DNA-targeting system hiding inside bacteriophages that predates CRISPR. We call it VIPR (Viral Interference Programmable Repeat), and it uses an entirely new logic to find its targets. Thread + link below.
A new family of rolling-circle replication endonucleases widespread in archaeal viruses and plasmids. This family is unrelated to the HUH superfamily Reps, but distantly related to the bacterial Rep_trans enzymes. @narjournal.bsky.social academic.oup.com/nar/article/...
Finally published at long last (at least in the pre-view version). Explore the wild and woolly world of archaeal histones! Interactive archaeal histone graph incluced rdcu.be/fdFjv. Congratulations to first author Shawn Laursen
A recent publication in The Journal of Chemical Physics by ISTA alumni Felix Frey and Miguel Amaral with Professor Anđela Šarić explores how geometry controls archaeal membrane stability and lipid organization. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0325170
An Asgard archaeon from a modern analog of ancient microbial mats (Current Biology) Beautiful microscopy of an Asgard archaeon, in the same family as Lokiarchaea, in syntrophy with a sulfate-reducing bacteria Very very nice paper we saw in preprint form: www.cell.com/current-biol...
Phylogenomics of Asgard archaea reveals a unique blend of prokaryotic-like horizontal transfer and eukaryotic-like gene duplication www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs
Phylogenomics of Asgard archaea reveals a unique blend of prokaryotic-like horizontal transfer and eukaryotic-like gene duplication - Nature Communications
The genomes of Asgard archaea, the closest prokaryotic relatives to eukaryotes, are larger than those of other archaea and contain multiple genes seemingly acquired from bacteria. Here, Manzano-Morales and Gabaldón quantify gene duplication, loss, and transfer events in Asgard genomes, showing that gene duplications, rather than horizontal gene transfers, are the primary drivers behind the increased genome sizes.
nature.com
Planetary microbiome structure and generalist-driven gene flow across disparate habitats: Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
Planetary microbiome structure and generalist-driven gene flow across disparate habitats
A planetary-scale analysis of over 85,000 metagenomes establishes a framework for exploring the structure and drivers of global microbial habitats, revealing that generalist species bridge ecological boundaries to mediate gene flow across disparate habitats, including the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance.
cell.com
What if AI could invent enzymes that nature hasn’t seen? 👩🔬🧑🔬 Introducing 🪩 DISCO: Diffusion for Sequence-structure CO-design 📝 Blog: disco-design.github.io 📄 Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2604.05181 💻 Code: github.com/DISCO-design...
Such an incredible journey building DISCO 🪩. Love working with this team. DISCO is a co-design model with functional, de novo, new-to-nature enzymes. Huge shoutout to my co-authors for making this a reality! 🚀👇
Marta Skreta@martaowesyou.bsky.social · 4mo agoWhat if AI could invent enzymes that nature hasn’t seen? 👩🔬🧑🔬 Introducing 🪩 DISCO: Diffusion for Sequence-structure CO-design 📝 Blog: disco-design.github.io 📄 Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2604.05181 💻 Code: github.com/DISCO-design...