#microsky New preprint from the lab! Widespread immune systems protect bacteria against conjugative plasmids www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Kudos to the extremely talented lead author Ludovic Poiré! Key contributions by @francoisrousset.bsky.social and also help from C. Lesterlin/TacC lab. 🧵⬇️

Interested in a PhD on bacteriophages? Check out www.academictransfer.com/nl/jobs/3623... #phagesky if you are interested and also happen to be at #VOM2026, send me a dm

CryoSPARC workshop in Toronto! Beyond consensus refinements: Advanced cryo-EM data processing with CryoSPARC Sept 24-25, 2026 (part of the Canadian Cryo-EM Nexus) Register here: cvent.me/dL1wem Please see details in the link or the image Alt text @structurabio.bsky.social @sickkidsto.bsky.social

Very excited to see this work, on our insecticidal pore forming protein come out. This was an enormous amount of work and outstanding collaboration between Monash and Cardiff Uni. first put together by Prof Colin Berry. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We’re happy to introduce phageFACTor (Functional Annotation and Curation Tool) 👩‍💻Developed by Tanaïs Moreau, our most recent PhD candidate, and building on Phold, we were able to improve annotation of prophage genes by as much as 50% 🧬 You should check it out github.com/TMs-code/pha...

Our evil ORFeome paper is out! In collaboration with @alex-stark.bsky.social, we screened ~4,000 viral proteins and secreted effectors from bacteria and parasites, covering hundreds of diverse pathogens, for phenotypes in human cells.

Our Dept of Microbiology & Immunology @Geisel School of Medicine @Dartmouth has an opening for an Assistant Professor. Looking for programs bridging multiple areas in Micro & Immuno. A great place to be! Programs: www.M2P2.org www.dartmouthbiofilm.org Job ad: apply.interfolio.com/187637

Congratulations to Aude Bernheim (@audeber.bsky.social), elected EMBO Member 2026 🎉 Her work on bacterial immunity is reshaping how we understand immune systems across all life forms — from bacteria to humans. @embo.org

📢 We're hiring! The Department of Microbiology & Cell Biology at Montana State University is hiring an Assistant Professor of Microbiology. We welcome applicants working in microbial pathogenesis, immunology, genetics, microbial evolution, and related areas. Apply: jobs.montana.edu/postings/52009

New preprint!! 🎉 A cool collaborative work with @copabio.bsky.social and Chase Beisel teams on the phage editing technology. @sarshad.bsky.social led the work from our side to validate & characterize the lib. #phage #phagesky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Work supported by: phagefoundry.org

Out Now! END nucleases are antiphage defence systems targeting multiple phages with modified genomes #MicroSky

Faculty search announcement 2026: Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Microbiology at UT Southwestern in Dallas. We seek candidates working in microbial pathogenesis (broadly defined). Come join our community! (1/5) www.utsouthwestern.edu/departments/...

Consider applying for a faculty position with us at the University of Washington in Seattle. #microbiome Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) position in the Department of Microbiology. Position Posting: apply.interfolio.com/185622 microbiology.washington.edu/uw-microbiol...

Also featuring a cGAS-STING Review from Dr. Andrea Ablasser www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Another chapter of my thesis is out! We asked whether we could pair proteome-wide AlphaFold screening with Tn-seq to identify biologically relevant protein-protein interactions. We identify ClcR (formerly YerH) as a component of the Rod complex in Gram-positive bacteria. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Online Now: Oligomer disassembly activates an HEPN-containing bacterial defense system Online now:

New paper in collaboration with @proftracypalmer.bsky.social, @lislowe.bsky.social and many more. We show that mycobacteria produce Type VII secreted anti-bacterial protein toxins. Excited to explore this new area of mycobacterial biology. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The mutational landscape of STING-induced immunity www.nature.com/articles/s41... @nature.com

Are restriction/modification modules only used for host defense? @selmamhm.bsky.social shows an alternative use. "Restriction-modification systems are required for Neisseria gonorrhoeae pilin antigenic variation" www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2602688123 #Microd #Microsky. #Microbiology

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 ⬇️

#NatMicroPicks Phage-to-phage dialogue! 🗨️💬 Arbitrium peptide signaling systems in bacteriophages exhibit cross-communication where peptides can influence non-cognate receptors to promote lysogeny #MicroSky www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

How did animal senses evolve? Max Coyle et al. used choanoflagellates to uncover TRPW, ancient ion channels predating animal somatosensory receptors. TRPW links microbial prey ecology to evolution of receptor structure, sensory organelles, & multicellular processing. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Viral theft of light: A cyanophage protein dismantles cyanobacterial photosynthesis to accelerate infection www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

Preprint: Plant pathogens cleave 2’cADPR to suppress TIR immune signaling Inspired by knowledge on how phages inhibit bacterial immunity, we now show that disease-causing bacteria inhibit plant immunity in a similar way. A 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Cannibalism shapes biofilm structure and composition in Bacillus subtilis mBio by Lena Friebel from Thosten Mascher group within @spp2389.bsky.social DFG program journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... Superb summary of colony phenotypes in figure 1

I'm excited to share our recent working using forward genetics to identify virulence determinants in Rickettsia. Check it out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New paper alert!! We just discovered a new filament system that is widespread exclusively within CPR bacteria! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6.... Short thread below. 🦠🔬🚀

Very happy to share this preview article written by my postdoc Danny on exciting recent work from @ostermanilya.bsky.social and @soreklab.bsky.social. New bacterial immunity, phage countermeasures, and a double pun combo in the title.

NAD to the bone: How bacteria put phages under aRES-t … and how phages fight back Preview of work IDing aRES, bacterial proteins that deplete cellular NAD+, generating products that cannot be utilized by phage NAD+ regeneration pathways www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

How did complex cells emerge? In this groundbreaking paper, @tonigabaldon.bsky.social & co show that eukaryotes arose through multiple waves of ancient genetic exchange involving diverse bacteria (& giant viruses!) revealing a far more complex origin than we imagined. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Koonin & team dive deep into YprA-family defence systems that define “SPIDER” elements: satellite phage-like defence islands that overlap with the GIs we showed are transferred by jumbo phages. They're packed with ecologically relevant genes. The stuff that moves matters! doi.org/10.1016/j.ch...

How do human cells defend against viruses? @sgfern.bsky.social discovers that human immune proteins named ISGs target ancient features of replication shared between animal and bacterial viruses – opening analysis of human immunity to the power of bacterial genetics www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Bacterial cell division protein FtsZ complexes with a phage protein to activate bacterial immunity @natmicrobiol.nature.com from Michael Laub & Abel Garcia-Pino www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to share a new preprint from the lab by @melissamcevoy.bsky.social The S/G2 checkpoint prevents the premature shutdown of the DNA replication program. Without it, cells fail to finish replicating their chromosomes and have severe mitotic errors. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Interested in studying nuclear condensates across the cell cycle? Our latest methods paper in STAR Protocols may be exactly what you are looking for! Here, we describe a high-throughput, novel imaging approach that tracks condensate dynamics in human cells. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Reminder — UW #Microbiology has an open search for an Assistant Professor, focusing on fundamental problems in #bacteriology! If you or someone you know would be suitable, here's the ad: apply.interfolio.com/185622

www.nature.com/articles/s41... #phage#phagesky

Tension TRAAKer: a chemigenetic fluorescent membrane tension reporter https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.08.730921v1

CapK is a bacterial DNA damage-activated kinase that phosphorylates transcriptional repressor CapS to control adjacently-encoded anti-phage immune pathway genes in response to a universal stress signal, DNA damage @kevincorbett.bsky.social and colleagues link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Out Now! Wall teichoic acids plug nanopores in Bacillus subtilis cell wall and regulate peptidoglycan synthesis #MicroSky

The CRISPR-Cas system in E. coli K-12 is considered inactive. We questioned whether mobile elements encode anti-CRISPRs against this system and found a highly abundant AcrIE9-AcrIE10 tandem and a novel AcrIE13 — an HTH protein more similar to Aca than known Acrs. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Balancing of immune activation and suppression during phage infection https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.04.730250v1

Thank you for being part of ASM Microbe 2026! Save the date for ASM Microbe 2027, taking place June 22–25 in Chicago. Got big ideas? Session proposals open tomorrow—help shape next year’s program and push the microbial sciences forward. #ASMicrobe asm.social/2XY.

Hey #ASMICROBE I give my talk tomorrow and have two really cool things I want to share with everyone. You’ll have to come by to hear them!

Molecular mimicry of a pathogen virulence target by a plant immune receptor | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

@agnese75.bsky.social's work is out. She shows that under iron starvation M. tuberculosis splits flux through the Krebs cycle and secretes metabolites, akin of fermentation. Why is this important? Metabolic flexibility is what makes it so hard to kill in vivo. elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

Now out in @pnas.org 🥳 "DNA-intercalating antiphage molecules trigger abortive infection through mutual destruction and synergize with bacterial immunity" --> bad timing can kill you, even as a virus. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @spp2330.bsky.social, @mibinet.bsky.social, @dfg.de

@romihadary.bsky.social and @soreklab.bsky.social 's discovery that sponge proteins constitute enormous families of viral immune evasion factors is now out in @natmicrobiol.nature.com @reneechang.bsky.social and our lab were happy to help with this story! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

For years, the #cryoEM community viewed ~50 kDa as the practical lower size limit for SPA. This was challenged by Kim et al., who introduced the HR-HAIR method and demonstrated structure determination of proteins below 30 kDa using #CryoSPARC. Read more 👉 bit.ly/3RHMxAt

Phages invented sgRNAs before humans!! 🧬 Obviously, for mischief… 😈 Loved seeing this story unfold!