The outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria blocks many antibiotics. Our latest work reveals that L-type pyocins bypass this barrier by inactivating the BAM complex, killing Pseudomonas aeruginosa without entering the cell, providing a new blueprint for beating antibiotic resistance.

New preprint from the lab, in collaboration with Ed Tate, Nate Traaseth and many others! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We are hiring a Postdoc in membrane protein cryo-EM at the University of Georgia. Looking for candidates with expertise in membrane protein purification and biochemistry. Fully funded for up to 5 years. Join us in Athens, GA. Apply: [email protected]

Really pleased to share some recent work from our lab now published in Comms Bio. Here, we’ve identified and characterised a peculiar TRAP transporter binding protein from B. pertussis that we think uses a membrane component from a completely different transporter family. rdcu.be/eAr8v

Di-Gembodies (dimerized nanobodies) for improved and duplexed CryoEM of small and challenging targets! A collaboration of @cmd.ox.ac.uk, STRUBI, @diamondlightsource.bsky.social, @rosfrankinst.bsky.social Out now in Nature Chemical Biology @natchembio.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Exciting new paper from Wonsik Lee's group in Korea, using TnSeq to study gene essentiality in various intracellular and extracellular infection niches of S aureus. Loads of cool insights into metabolism and nutrient acquisition in the host www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our review on the peculiar properties of mitochondrial carriers of the SLC25 family out: portlandpress.com/biochemj/art...

Just seen this very clever paper from Alex O'Neill's group at Leeds. Systematic approaches to identify routes of antibiotic uptake in S. aureus and E. coli! As someone who never believed the dogma of passive diffusion, I feel very vindicated.. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40631918/

Super excited to share our latest work revealing impt of protein-lipid interactions for the pri fn of the Tol-Pal complex in maintaining outer memb lipid homeostasis in E. coli! Huge discovery by Nadege Lim in collab @pstansfeld.bsky.social @robincorey.bsky.social 1/7 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Join our group in the Centre for Medicines Discovery at Oxford Univ. @cmd.ox.ac.uk @ox.ac.uk !!!! Happy to chat about any questions about the role and science. Oxford will assist with a skilled worker visa. Please RT! my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

Really excited that our group was able to contribute to this awesome work from Bing Zhang and Zihe Rao solving the structure and assembly of the MmpS5L5 efflux pump from Mtb!! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Beta-lactams covalently bind to Penicillin Binding Proteins and have been the mainstay of antimicrobial chemotherapy for decades. In this new paper with colleagues @Bicycle_tx we show a new way to hit old targets: rdcu.be/eoaRI

Are you wondering how sugar is used to fuel your body? Work with @mitocarriers.bsky.social and Vanessa Leone describes an important step along the way... how the break-down product pyruvate gets into the mitochondria! A very satisfying application of #alphafold3 www.linkedin.com/posts/nation...

The Role of Chloride Ions in Serotonin Transport https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.20.654092v1

New Type VII ABC Transporter just dropped! We are super excited to present our characterisation of the YbbAP-TesA complex, a novel Type VII ABC transporter linked to a periplasmic thioesterase. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Structure of YbbAP-TesA: a Type VII ABC transporter lipid-hydrolase complex https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.16.654284v1

Today is SLC13A5 Epilepsy International Awareness Day, I'm reminded in an email this morning from Kim Nye, founder of TESS Research Foundation. Read more here: www.tessresearch.org/awareness/ and …

Solène’s 4.5 years of postdoctoral work in our lab (she started just before the corona pandemic) has now been published. A heroic effort that revealed -at the single molecule level- that ATP drives the dissociation of an ECF transporter complex under turnover conditions. See rdcu.be/elTKc

This took us a while and I am all the happier it is finally out! I thought that simply adding ATP to purified potassium channel KtrAB should be sufficient to stabilize its active state. I was so wrong... Read the full story on how an IDR facilitates channel opening upon membrane interaction.

Got any great final year students who love the bench but don't (yet) want to do a PhD? I'm looking for a research technician to join our amazing AVERT team for the last 2 years of the project - a great chance to develop lab skills while supporting our team in York. jobs.york.ac.uk/vacancy/rese...

Why are biological membranes asymmetric, with different lipids in the two bilayer leaflets? Discovered in the 70s, lipid asymmetry is linked to many cellular processes, but why the cell needs it is largely unclear. @pavelbarahtjan.bsky.social addresses this question: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Just posted on bioRxiv! We reveal the structure of the MurJ/LysM (JM) complex. A small phage protein, LysM (37 residues), binds to MurJ like a wedge and freezes its motion. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Only 5 more days left to apply. Take the chance and join us trying to understand the molecular mechanisms of conjugation, in beautiful Umeå, Sweden. We are extremely well equipped, and are looking for an enthusiastic person to join our team! 😀

Our paper is finally out: Molecular basis of pyruvate transport and inhibition of the human mitochondrial pyruvate carrier | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #mitochondria #cryo-EM

I started on this around 2006 so only taken 20 years! The project itself started over 30 years ago. Great to finally see the elusive structure.

Two ERC-funded postdoc positions available in the team - one here and second to follow - please repost! jobs.ncl.ac.uk/job/Newcastl...

New preprint! FtsEX-EnvC is a Type VII ABC transporter that activates the periplasmic enzymes needed to break the peptidoglycan layer during cell division. We tested the importance of structural features underpinning activation and the auto-inhibition mechanism that keeps it all in check.

Shout-out to @pierredupuy.bsky.social and colleagues! Excited to share our latest study, where we uncovered a previously unknown bacterial defense system in M. #tuberculosis: effluxosomes — dynamic membrane clusters that coordinate resistance to multiple toxic metals. shorturl.at/Ek0HD #MicroSky

Very proud to share our latest work on the molecular principles of the ancient the Na+-pumping Rnf complex – now out in Nature Comms @natureportfolio.nature.com: Thank you Schuller & Müller Labs for the great collaboration, and @kawresearch.bsky.social for funding: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The work was a collaboration with Nate Traaseth. Hope the method will help others solve structures of small membrane proteins in multiple conformations. The fusion strategy can be seen as a tribute to the late Ron Kaback, who attempted a similar approach with crystallizing the LacY 30 years ago.

A warm welcome to the one-and-only Da-Neng Wang danengw.bsky.social!

The last resort antibiotic daptomycin exhibits two independent antibacterial mechanisms of action https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.20.629673v1

So happy our pre-print on daptomycin mechanism of action is now out! Here, we present three main findings: i) daptomycin does not form large membrane pores in either B. subtilis or S. aureus, (1/3)

I was just looking at grant app from Jan that wasn't funded and I was tickled by this formatting weirdness that described it as "100% unsuccessful". As if to say, "It wasn't even a *little bit* successful, so don't get any ideas!" It was completely maxed out in its level of unsuccessfulness!

*Fully funded PhD position available in the lab* We will use structural proteomics to map the mechanosensitive interactions of talin in dendritic spines and how they change during long term potentiation. Please share, and email for details :) www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Now online! Anna’s fantastic work on the structure of the Human adult Muscle-type nicotinic receptor. Wonderful collab with Yin Dong at the @imm.ox.ac.uk www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

First last author paper FINALLY out today. Thank you to all the authors for their hard work ☺️

We made it to the front cover!!!

Amazing work capturing NaDC3 in multiple states and with various substrates/inhibitors! Congrats Yan Li, Da-Neng Wang, Joe Mindell, and Bill Rice!! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Preprint alert! Peptides are everywhere in biological environments, and these molecules serve as a rich source of nutrients for bacteria. Here, we uncover how one transporter protein allows S. aureus to utilise 100+ peptides for growth www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Another preprint, and this time the excellent work of @imrsankhan.bsky.social from his PhD & our first full experimental Staph aureus paper - on transporters of course! Imran found a cool link to glutathione and infection too. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Wow! 🥳 Starter Pack 1 on membrane proteins, lipids and transport processes has maxed out, so I made a 2nd one to reunite our community! Please share widely and reach out if you love lipids and the proteins that frolick at and in the membrane! 🧪 go.bsky.app/PnXecJZ

Delicious

All cells are encapsulated by a membrane of complex lipidic composition, right? Not anymore! @JamesSaenz.bsky.social et al. show that a ‘minimal’ bacterial cell only needs 2 lipid species #microNatComms #Microbiology #CellBiology #lipids Read the paper: www.nature.com/artic...#microNatComms

Really excited to be sharing our newest work on the bacterial Tol-Pal complex! The amazing Jiang YEOW solved cryo-EM structures of the TolQRA complex in 2 rotary states, aiding us to come up with a model for force transduction across the cell envelope! Pls RT! #SGBUG #SCELSE_SG #ChemNUS

And if you are interested,our review on bacterial outer membrane lipid asymmetry that @WeeBoon5 and I wrote is now published! Among other lipid transport systems, you can learn more about how we think about Tol-Pal function in OM lipid homeostasis! Pls RT! www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

We find a lot of proteins - particularly antibiotic biosynthetic enzymes - are produced in soluble form in Streptomyces lividans but not E.coli. It’s a useful platform for the production of otherwise intractable proteins.

The Thomas & Parkin labs are looking for a motivated PhD student to work across the biology/chemistry interface to help UK biotech company HydRegen improve biocatalyst production. The project is to understand & engineer increased nickel uptake in bacteria as part of BBSRC Yorkshire Bioscience DTP.

A new class of binding protein-dependent solute transporter exemplified by the TAXI-GltS system from Bordetella pertussis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.27.625746v1

We have quite a range of PhD projects this year, covering cryo-EM methods, bacteriology/bioenergetics, and infection/antibiotics/vaccines. Would really appreciate if people can RT and share with their teams!