I am months late, but this fascinating study shows that evolution is the ultimate tinkerer! Benjamin @huepfkiesel.bsky.social et al. showed how a bacterial DNA segregation system was repurposed into a cytoskeleton that controls cell shape in multicellular cyanobacteria.

The origin of complex cells may have been far messier than we thought!

A fascinating reminder that evolution builds on what already exists! Some of the genes behind animal multicellularity may have first played a role in aggregation, helping unicellular ancestors come together and form groups long before the first animals evolved. Super cool study!

Very very cool! Also rises the question on whether all 'phase separation' could just be molecular diffusion and binding events yet to be precisely characterized 🤔😅😜

Out today - structure of the human HIRA histone chaperone complex bound to nucleosomes. Ever wondered how nucleosomes are assembled in the wake of transcription? It takes a 'hulk of a protein complex'. Work by the amazing Wei Tian weetian558.bsky.social. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵

Excited to share my postdoc work on the cryo‑EM structure of the budding yeast telomerase holoenzyme! 🧫🧬 It’s been a real privilege to be part of the awesome Kelly Lab @kellythd-nguyen.bsky.social. Grateful as well to the incredible facilities @mrclmb.ac.uk.

Congrats Deniz @microbiodnz.bsky.social 👏🎉

New preprint! We show that conjugation accelerates the segregation of #plasmid alleles -> horizontal transfer is a route for allele segregation in MGE evolution. Led by Lisa Hartmann, with @mariosanter.bsky.social &Nils Hülter. Naturally, reviewed by @qedscience.bsky.social! doi.org/10.64898/202...

Asgard #archaea: have we found our microbial ancestors? New review (also for newcomers to the field!) by Christa Schleper and Thiago Rodrigues-Oliveira link.springer.com/article/10.1...

With Eugene Koonin, we propose a concept of “the selfish ribosome”, under which evolution of life is viewed as a ribosomal takeover, where the ribosome evolved to consume most of the cell’s resources, while other cellular componentry ensures the propagation of the ribosome. arxiv.org/abs/2602.23268

This is an incredible resource: The MicrobeAtlas Database www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Since last year, I've been making a RELION GUI that supports viewing, navigating and running jobs in a way completely compatible with the original RELION pipeline. Now it's working nicely for both SPA and tomography! Please try it out - github.com/hanjinliu/hi...

New online: Z-DNA formation regulates the totipotent-like state and primes Zscan4-dependent chromatin compartmentalization

Max Fels @mfels.bsky.social from our lab discovers giant DNA viruses that infect amoeba encode eIF4E and the entire suite of 4F complex proteins to control mRNA translation, including beautiful crystal structures of viral 4E bound to modified mRNA 5' caps: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Our latest preprint: Together with the team of Jan Löwe, @danieltamarit.bsky.social and many others we discovered and characterized several Asgard tubulin genes and propose that microtubule architecture and dynamics evolved in Asgard archaea prior to eukaryogenesis www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Our great collaboration with the lab of Wei Yang and Kaoru Sugasawa is now online in Nature. We’re glad we could contribute some cell biology to complement this beautiful structural and biochemical work. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Wow! Self-replication!

Glad to share our paper out today @NatureEcoEvo: “Serial innovations by Asgard archaea shaped the DNA replication machinery of the early eukaryotic ancestor”. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #microsky #archaeasky

Check out this awesome work by Strock et al. on how Archaea can turn nasty against Bacteria. Very honored for the opportunity to spread their story in a primer with @apapageorgiou.bsky.social. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

If you are curious about plant evolution, cytogenomics, and big-picture questions about biodiversity, feel free to get in touch with Sreetama @sreetamabhadra.bsky.social!

This was fun! Folding whole proteomes… looking at tomogram, looking at genomes🤩 lots to discover!🧬🧶

Check out this weird protein we found in a Loki Asgard archaea.🧬🧶Only found relatives in other Lokis. 🤔 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Alright, last one, now I need to get back to real work... 😸

📣 We are proud of the publication of the second paper of @bbaker24.bsky.social PhD thesis. In collaboration with friends in Halifax we have studied the difficult question of the phylogeny of the DPANN archaea, composed of several phyla of highly reduced, fast-evolving epiparasites 🧵 rdcu.be/erkkU

One more appointment with great science in a few days, one click away 👇

It's publication day of my first book: The Tree of Life. The tree of life is a time machine that can take us back 4 billion years to meet our most distant ancestor. It is the magic that lets us tell the origin stories, beginning with this ancient relative, of everything from mushrooms to man.

Interesting paper alert! #eukaryogenesis www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

When asked to draw a scientist, school-age kids in the United States are increasingly sketching women, according to a study from 2018. Read more on #WomenInScienceDay: https://scim.ag/4hOUuvx

Closing out our winter premier, @florianwollweber.bsky.social will tell us about his investigations into the elusive cell biology of Asgard archaea using state-of-the-art imaging techniques! Show your love for archaea by tuning in on WEDNESDAY! Remember, they're everywhere, always watching 👀