Romi Hadary
@romihadary.bsky.social
📤 84
📥 57
📝 21
PhD student
@Soreklab.bsky.social
@WeizmannScience Studying phage-bacteria arms race🦠🛡️
pinned post!
Excited to see our paper out in
@science.org
🧽✨ Congrats
@nitzantal.bsky.social
!
add a skeleton here at some point
4 months ago
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Kranzusch Lab
1 day ago
New preprint from
@courtneyrsantos.bsky.social
and
@kvnforsberg.bsky.social
discovering human ISGs are sufficient to block phage replication in bacteria! Amazing to see such strong phenotypes especially against RNA phages:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Kranzusch Lab
17 days ago
@ohadroth.bsky.social
and
@soreklab.bsky.social
discover bacterial enzymes that cleave the immune signal 2'cADPR explaining the mystery of XopQ virulence proteins in plant pathogens. Beautiful results mirroring phage inhibition of 2'- and 3'cADPR in bacteria! 🌱✂️
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Ohad Roth
17 days ago
How do pathogens disarm plant immunity? We discovered a widespread strategy used by plant bacterial pathogens: they directly cleave a conserved immune signaling molecule produced by plant immune receptors.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.15.732069v1.full.pdf
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Cell Host & Microbe
21 days ago
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...
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NAD to the bone: How bacteria put phages under aRES-t … and how phages fight back
In this issue of Cell Host & Microbe, Osterman et al. discover aRES, a new family of bacterial immune proteins that deplete cellular NAD+, generating cleavage products that cannot be utilized by canon...
https://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/abstract/S1931-3128(26)00206-4
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Kranzusch Lab
21 days ago
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...
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Romi Hadary
bioRxiv Microbiology
28 days ago
Balancing of immune activation and suppression during phage infection
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.04.730250v1
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Nature Microbiology
about 1 month ago
Out Now! Functional diversity of phage sponge proteins that sequester host immune signals
#MicroSky
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Functional diversity of phage sponge proteins that sequester host immune signals
Nature Microbiology, Published online: 02 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41564-026-02352-0A functional screen reveals phage sponge proteins that bind Pycsar, Thoeris and CBASS signalling molecules to inhibit bacterial immunity.
https://go.nature.com/3ROaF4s
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Kranzusch Lab
about 1 month ago
@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...
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Excited to see our work out in
@natmicrobiol.nature.com
! We uncovered broad functional diversity within phage sponge families🧽. Huge thanks to all coauthors and brilliant collaborators
@kranzuschlab.bsky.social
@reneechang.bsky.social
!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
add a skeleton here at some point
about 1 month ago
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Osterman Ilya
about 1 month ago
Our aRES story is finally out 😀 Beyond what was reported in the preprint, we found that aRES is activated by direct binding of the phage DNA polymerase. Another NAD-degrading defense system — and multiple phage strategies to overcome it.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Very exciting story about phage RyRs! An anti-defense family with members function either as an enzyme or as a sponge inhibiting Thoeris🛡️🧽✂️ Striking similarity to the animal RyR! Really glad to have taken part in this discovery, congrats
@riveralopz.bsky.social
and coauthors on this beautiful work!
add a skeleton here at some point
about 1 month ago
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Osterman Ilya
about 1 month ago
🚨After 4 fantastic years in the Sorek lab
@soreklab.bsky.social
, I’ll be starting my own group at EMBL
@embl.org
bl.org
Hamburg.
www.embl.org/groups/oster...
Metabolism-driven immunity: phages, metabolites, and discovery of new enzymes, molecules, and pathways 🦠🧬
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Osterman Group – Metabolism-driven immunity
https://www.embl.org/groups/osterman/
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Sar Crespi
about 1 month ago
This week on the
@science.org
podcast,
@richardastone.bsky.social
talks about our bacterial brothers in arms. Listen here:
www.science.org/content/podc...
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Romi Hadary
Aude Bernheim
about 1 month ago
Great piece and cover
@science.org
about how our field is uncovering the evolutionary and mechanistic connections between bacterial and eukaryotic immunity !
www.science.org/content/article/ancient-wars-between-microbes-gave-us-key-immune-defenses
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Cell Host & Microbe
about 1 month ago
Predicting phage anti-defenses that shoot the messenger Mahler &
@yuping-li.bsky.social
highlight
@science.org
work developing a structure-guided approach to identify phage proteins counteracting bacterial nucleotide signaling defenses using metagenomic data.
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...
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Predicting phage anti-defenses that shoot the messenger
Locked in a constant arms race, bacteria and their phage predators have evolved various defenses and counter-defenses. Compared to the numerous identified defenses, phage-encoded counter-defenses are ...
https://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/abstract/S1931-3128(26)00170-8
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Shicheng Guo
about 2 months ago
Phage encodes a sponge protein blocking bacterial TIR-Caspase immune signaling, inhibiting type IV Thoeris. Discovered through phage mating assays. PMID:41968157, Nat Commun 2026, @NatureComms
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71527-4
#Medsky
#Pharmsky
#RNA
#ASHG
#ESHG
🧪
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A phage-encoded sponge protein suppresses bacterial TIR-Caspase immune signaling | Nature Communications
Triggering immune response through generation of signal molecules is a common immune strategy across all domains of life. In the bacterial type IV Thoeris anti-phage system, a Toll/interleukin-1 receptor (TIR)-domain protein produces adenosine 5’-diphosphate-cyclo[N7:1”]-ribose (N7-cADPR) as the immune signal to activate a Caspase-like effector. Here, we identified an inhibitor of type IV Thoeris through a phage mating assay that allows a sensitive phage to acquire anti-defense genes from related resistant phages. The inhibitor (hereafter TadIV-1) functions as a sponge that sequesters the N7-cADPR signal to inhibit Caspase activation. Structural analyses of TadIV-1 indicate a distinctive signal binding mechanism, wherein the binding pocket comprises its N-terminal flexible loop. In addition, phages lacking TadIV-1 can escape type IV Thoeris sensing through mutation in the capsid vertex protein. Collectively, this work expands the phage anti-defense arsenal with a unique immune signal s
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71527-4
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Emmanuele Severi
2 months ago
#microsky
#phagesky
#phage
defence
academic.oup.com/nar/article/...
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The SAVED domain of the type III CRISPR protease CalpL is a ring nuclease
Abstract. Prokaryotic CRISPR-Cas immune systems detect and cleave foreign nucleic acids. In type III CRISPR-Cas systems, the Cas10 subunit of the activated
https://academic.oup.com/nar/article/52/17/10520/7737999?utm_source=researchgate.net
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Kenneth Loi
2 months ago
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.
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Sorek Lab
2 months ago
We found that TIR domains in animal immune proteins, including the human TLR4, are enzymes that cleave NAD+ to produce the signaling molecule cADPR Read our new preprint by talented Bohdana Hurieva: “Conserved catalytic activity of immune TIR domains in animals”
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.20.719644v1
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Huge effort to systematically characterize TIR domains🔬 revealing conserved catalytic activities, including surprising human TIR! Beautiful work by
@bhurieva.bsky.social
and coauthors, congrats!!✨👏🏻
add a skeleton here at some point
2 months ago
1
3
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Aude Bernheim
3 months ago
How diverse is bacterial immunity ? We report in
@science.org
how language models allowed us to predict 2.4M antiphage proteins spanning >23K novel potential systems. 👏
@emordret.bsky.social
,
@alexhv.bsky.social
& al
doi.org/10.1126/scie...
Explore them here
defensefinder.mdmlab.fr/wiki/refseq_...
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https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adv8275
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Stern-Ginossar Lab
3 months ago
We are excited to share our new paper in Molecular Cell uncovering how the viral lncRNA RNA2.7 reshapes host cell biology!
sciencedirect.com/science/authShare/S1097276526001565/20260324T143400Z/1?md5=16c84051c2f253c4665427f837a529d3&dgcid=author
A thread 🧵
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Jens Hör
3 months ago
Excited to share the first preprint from the lab! We show that ApeA defends against RNA phage infection by cleaving the phage genome:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.20.713152v1
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Malcolm White
4 months ago
New preprint: Cyclic tri-adenylate signalling by a Panoptes anti-phage guard system with a CARF-TM effector. Great work led by Sabine Grüschow
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Artem Nemudryi
4 months ago
Our work on bacterial Schlafens in phage defense is out today
@natmicrobiol.nature.com
! Check out the final version here:
rdcu.be/e7Bmz
We are looking for postdocs and students to expand our team! Official postings are coming soon. Please reach out if you're interested!
#phage
#phagesky
#microsky
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Nitzan Tal
4 months ago
Very excited to see this work out today! Discovering viral immune antagonists directly from predicted protein structures. 🤩
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Huge thanks to the amazing collaborators! 🤗
add a skeleton here at some point
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Sam Hobbs
4 months ago
CBASS is a cyclic nucleotide-based antiviral system in bacteria that is related to cGAS-STING signaling in animals. One of the big questions is how CBASS is activated during phage infection? We made some progress on this during my final year in the Kranzusch lab.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.04.709575v1
3
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Kranzusch Lab
4 months ago
After >10 years of our lab studying bacterial cGAS-like enzymes,
@hobbslabutah.bsky.social
finally reconstitutes viral sensing in vitro and discovers how these ancient receptors sense phage protease enzymes to detect virion assembly and activate antiviral immunity
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Kranzusch Lab
4 months ago
@nitzantal.bsky.social
@romihadary.bsky.social
@soreklab.bsky.social
use structure prediction and in silico binding site analysis to discover viral immune evasion proteins! Exciting for our lab
@reneechang.bsky.social
@riveralopz.bsky.social
to help with this project.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
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Excited to see our paper out in
@science.org
🧽✨ Congrats
@nitzantal.bsky.social
!
add a skeleton here at some point
4 months ago
0
4
0
reposted by
Romi Hadary
Kranzusch Lab
4 months ago
Congratulations to Sonomi Yamaguchi for her paper at
@nature.com
. Sonomi discovered Clover defense and explained how nucleotide signals control each step of viral sensing, immune regulation, and viral restriction – named for her beautiful "four-leaf" structures 🍀
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Bohdana Hurieva🇺🇦
5 months ago
Excited to share our new paper led by a wonderful Jing Liu on designing de novo IDRs🧪🖥️
add a skeleton here at some point
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Cell Host & Microbe
5 months ago
Chemical inhibition of a bacterial immune system Small molecules inhibit type II Thoeris anti-phage systems from diverse bacteria. One compound, IP6C, improves phage-therapy against P. aeruginosa & is effective against Thoeris in polymicrobial communities
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...
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Chemical inhibition of a bacterial immune system
Bacteriophages are promising alternatives to antibiotics for treating bacterial infections. However, bacteria possess immune systems that neutralize bacteriophages. Zang et al. discover small molecule...
https://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/fulltext/S1931-3128(26)00003-X
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Another amazing work by
@ostermanilya.bsky.social
! A new NAD⁺-depleting defense system and its phage antagonists, revealing an exciting bacterial–phage arms race. 🛡️⚔️ Congrats Ilya and coauthors!
add a skeleton here at some point
5 months ago
1
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Stern-Ginossar Lab
6 months ago
Our new paper is out in Nature 🎉. We show that m1Ψ in mRNA vaccines doesn’t just quiet immunity, it also directly enhance translation by reshaping ribosome dynamics in a sequence-dependent way 🧬 Full paper :
rdcu.be/eY5gx
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N1-Methylpseudouridine directly modulates translation dynamics
Nature - N1-Methylpseudouridine enhances the translation of synthetic mRNAs, independently of innate immunity.
https://rdcu.be/eY5gx
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Nature
6 months ago
“Up ’till now, we couldn’t detect it, because we didn’t look at the garbage cans of cells.” Yifat Merbl found a new trick of the immune system, and is part of Nature’s 10, a list of people who shaped science in 2025
go.nature.com/3XZQdgY
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This scientist found a new trick of the immune system by digging through cellular rubbish
Nature - Yifat Merbl is part of Nature’s 10, a list of people who shaped science in 2025.
https://go.nature.com/3XZQdgY
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Aude Bernheim
7 months ago
Bacterial genomes encode a rich repertoire of antiphage systems, but we still know surprisingly little about when these systems are actually expressed. In this preprint, Lucas Paoli et al, ask what shapes antiphage systems expression in native contexts.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Environment and physiology shape antiphage system expression
Bacteria and archaea encode on average ten antiphage systems. Quorum sensing, cellular, or transcription factors can regulate specific systems (CRISPR-Cas, CBASS). Yet, a systematic assessment of anti...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.14.694197v1
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Incredible to learn how far-reaching and diverse Thoeris really is! TIRs play key roles across kingdoms, and this work beautifully highlights their bacterial origins. Congrats
@erezyirmiya.bsky.social
& Azita! 👏🌟
add a skeleton here at some point
7 months ago
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Aude Bernheim
7 months ago
🧬🛡️How are new immune mechanisms created? We show how Lamassu antiphage system, originated from a DNA-repair complex and evolved into a compact and modular immune machine, wt Dinshaw Patel lab in
@pnas.org
. 👏
@matthieu-haudiquet.bsky.social
, Arpita Chakravarti & all authors!
doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Owen Tuck
8 months ago
Our nuclease-protease story is out! We explored a fascinating case of coevolution and modularity in prokaryotic immune systems:
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Thanks to wonderful coauthors/collaborators/friends, the whole
@doudna-lab.bsky.social
and everyone at
@innovativegenomics.bsky.social
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Recurrent acquisition of nuclease-protease pairs in antiviral immunity
Antiviral immune systems diversify by integrating new genes into existing pathways, creating new mechanisms of viral resistance. We identified genes encoding a predicted nuclease paired with a trypsin...
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea8769
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So proud of
@nitzantal.bsky.social
👏🏻such an inspiring and brilliant scientist!
add a skeleton here at some point
8 months ago
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An incredible story revealing a novel defense system that senses DNA shredding during phage infection — beautifully solved by
@ostermanilya.bsky.social
! 🧬✨
add a skeleton here at some point
8 months ago
0
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Ben Adler
9 months ago
Today in
@nature.com
, we highlight how a cousin of CRISPR-Cas10, mCpol, establishes an evolutionary trap in anti-phage immune systems. Check out
@erinedoherty.bsky.social
and my work from
@doudna-lab.bsky.social
lab here:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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A miniature CRISPR–Cas10 enzyme confers immunity by inhibitory signalling - Nature
Panoptes, an anti-phage defence system against virus-mediated immune suppression, is revealed.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09569-9
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Ben Morehouse
9 months ago
Our story describing the Panoptes bacterial immune defense system is now finally peer-reviewed and published today!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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The Panoptes system uses decoy cyclic nucleotides to defend against phage - Nature
The Panoptes antiphage system defends bacteria by detecting phage-encoded counter-defences that sequester cyclic nucleotide signals, triggering membrane disruption and highlighting a broader strategy of sensing immune evasion through second-messenger surveillance.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09557-z
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
François Rousset
10 months ago
Effector-triggered immunity (ETI) indirectly detects pathogen effector activity on the host cell. Kevin Barthes,Tanita Wein and I examine how prokaryotic and eukaryotic viruses deploy similar effectors that activate ETI, underscoring its central role across the tree of life.
tinyurl.com/mr3a3xh2
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Viral effectors trigger innate immunity across the tree of life | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Viruses are ubiquitous biological entities that exert immense selective pressures on their hosts, driving the evolution of diverse innate immune mechanisms across all domains of life. While innate imm...
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2024.0077
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Jeremy Garb
10 months ago
📢 New preprint alert! We designed synthetic proteins that can block bacterial immune systems, allowing phages + plasmids to overcome natural defenses. This could transform phage therapy + genetic engineering. Here’s what we found 🧵 Preprint🔗:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Synthetically designed anti-defense proteins overcome barriers to bacterial transformation and phage infection
Bacterial defense systems present considerable barriers to both phage infection and plasmid transformation. These systems target mobile genetic elements, limiting the efficacy of bacteriophage-based t...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.01.673470
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📢 Preprint out! Together with
@reneechang.bsky.social
@kranzuschlab.bsky.social
and the amazing
@soreklab.bsky.social
, we explored viral sponges to map their diversity and function. Discovered huge diversity, including sponges that inhibit Pycsar & Type IV Thoeris!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Functional diversity of phage sponge proteins that sequester host immune signals
Multiple bacterial immune systems, including CBASS, Thoeris, and Pycsar, employ signaling molecules that activate the immune response following phage infection. Phages counteract bacterial immune sign...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.24.671296v1
10 months ago
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Renee Chang
10 months ago
Excited to share my PhD work in the
@kranzuschlab.bsky.social
, out now in Molecular Cell
@cp-molcell.bsky.social
We discover Acb4, a new family of viral sponges that sequesters nucleotide immune signals and defines molecular features that enable ligand specificity.
www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
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A widespread family of viral sponge proteins reveals specific inhibition of nucleotide signals in anti-phage defense
Chang et al. discover anti-CBASS 4 (Acb4), a family of viral sponges that inhibits bacterial immunity by sequestering nucleotide immune signals. Acb4 homologs in phages that infect hosts across all ma...
https://www.cell.com/molecular-cell/fulltext/S1097-2765(25)00617-3
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reposted by
Romi Hadary
Kranzusch Lab
10 months ago
The beautiful, ever-expanding universe of viral proteins targeting nucleotide immune signals! Paper by
@reneechang.bsky.social
in
@cp-molcell.bsky.social
on a nucleotide sponge
www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
and preprint by
@doudna-lab.bsky.social
on viral nucleases
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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A widespread family of viral sponge proteins reveals specific inhibition of nucleotide signals in anti-phage defense
Chang et al. discover anti-CBASS 4 (Acb4), a family of viral sponges that inhibits bacterial immunity by sequestering nucleotide immune signals. Acb4 homologs in phages that infect hosts across all ma...
https://www.cell.com/molecular-cell/fulltext/S1097-2765(25)00617-3
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A beautiful and much-needed review on the role of nucleotides in immunity, congrats Dina!! 💫🧬
add a skeleton here at some point
11 months ago
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