Please join us for the Cold Spring Harbor Asia @cshlnews.bsky.social meeting on Bacterial Infection & Host Defense this May 11-15 in Suzhou, China! We have a fantastic lineup of speakers. Abstract deadline is March 6. Hope to see you there!

Happy to share a new review proposing a unified nomenclature for T4SSs. Great collaboration with Peter J Christie, Gabriel Waksman, Ronnie Per-Arne Berntsson and our team. academic.oup.com/femsre/artic... #T4SS#Microbiology

Cytosine methylation contributes to the fitness of Caulobacter cells naturally expressing a Vsr-like protein: iScience www.cell.com/iscience/ful... 🦠

CauloCon 2026 is coming! 🔬✨ March 3–5 (fully virtual + free). Keynotes by Yves Brun, Becky Lamason & Martin Thanbichler. Great chance for grad students & postdocs to present their work (work-in-progress welcome!). Submit an abstract by Sun Feb 8. Register + submit: www.caulocon.com

Cool new chemistry for covalent ligand development targeting arginine 👏

We’re excited to share our latest study that reshapes our understanding of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) lipid composition, with major implications for drug discovery, immunity, and vaccine development. www.nature.com/articles/s41... A thread.

🧵Enterococcus faecalis is not just an extracellular organism. 🧵 A growing body of work shows it can survive + REPLICATE inside host cells, and that intracellular life may seed persistence, dissemination, and reinfection. 1/n #MMBR @asm.org journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

did you notice, there 's a new kid on the (alpha)block... and it competes with Caulo for the cutest shape (*hides under cushion)

The diderm cell envelope is not a stack of layers but a unified scaffold of Inner Membrane–Peptidoglycan–Outer Membrane. We discuss how tethering the OM to the PG in E. coli preserves integrity — and extend the concept across diderm bacteria. Curr Opin Microbiol: doi.org/10.1016/j.mi... #microsky 🔬

New preprint of the Brucella team in Namur. Our first suppressor analysis 😉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

📢 Postdoc position: Cell Biology of Cyanobacteria in my group, as part of the Excellence Cluster "Microbes for Climate" (M4C) in Marburg, Germany. More information at shorturl.at/wNnDT (see Project 2) 🔗Apply at shorturl.at/VsEDl 📅Deadline: Nov 16, 2025 Please repost. #Postdoc

Forgot to post the recently published version of this paper on the role of a minor pilin-like protein in surface sensing journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

✨X-ray crystallography reveals surprising twist in how proteins enter the unique photosynthetic organelles of Paulinella. The chromatophore targeting peptide (crTP) folds into a 3D structure, hinting that folded proteins cross peptidoglycan and inner membrane. (1/2) academic.oup.com/plphys/artic...

📝New preprint! #MicroSky 🕰️We chart the full, synchronized lifecycle of a predatory bacterium using Hi-C, RNA-seq, ChIP-seq & microscopy. 🧬We uncover dramatic shifts in nucleoid architecture & transcription, tightly coordinated with predation. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🚨New paper out! #MicroSky Studying obligate predators like Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus is tricky—essential genes for predation are also essential for survival. We expanded its genetic toolbox: 🧬promoters to fine-tune expression 🧬IPTG-inducible system 🧬CRISPRi for rapid knockdown bit.ly/46GUn2c 1/4

I wrote a Preview in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social ! A new study suggests that #curli may protect prey from bacterial predators like #Bdellovibrio. Really looking forward to seeing this model confirmed with live-cell imaging and specific reporters! www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

🤩 Exciting Summer! 🤩 Two of my former postdocs in Switzerland🇨🇭 obtained Lecturer positions (Maîtres de Conférences) in French universities 🇨🇵 : congrats to Antonio Frandi and Florian Fournès !!!! 👏 La relève est assurée! All the best to both of you for this new start. 🤩

If the fossil fuel industry didn’t have our president and corporate America by the throat, we could have nice things like this too.

How Israel's policies created famine in Gaza bbc.com/news/article...

Great work by Adélie Lannoy on Brucella abortus, just published in The EMBO Journal www.embopress.org/doi/full/10..... Thanks to fantastic collaborators! An enigmatic, perhaps ancestral, protein complex predicted as a tunnel-like structure between membranes. Crucial for survival in macrophages

Xavier DeBolle @namurxa.bsky.social and collaborators identify and characterize a novel conserved complex mediating lipid-transport between inner and outer membrane in gram-negative Brucella abortus bacteria www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Queuosine is incorporated into precursor tRNA before splicing 💫 intron-containing precursors of tRNATyr are modified with Q or with galQ before being spliced #rnasky from @francescatuorto.bsky.social lab with @sebastianglatt.bsky.social and Helm labs www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to share our newly book chapter on using #miniTurbo proximity labeling in #bacteria We wrote it as a hands-on guide for anyone looking to get started with this approach. Congrats to @coralietesseur.bsky.social and Ophélie Remy 👏 @lalouxlab.bsky.social link.springer.com/protocol/10....

#MicroSky Summer read! Predatory bacteria kill and eat other bacteria. Their deadly actions come in many flavors, often via direct physical contact between predator & prey 🧛 How do they do it? Our review 📖 @coralietesseur.bsky.social @ysantin.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Charline studied how some clinical strains of Acinetobacter baumannii create a transient intracellular niche before infecting neighboring cells. Great collaboration with @kroegerlab.bsky.social If you are interested, check out her preprint! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Cool result: Transposon insertion sequencing reveals novel hypermutator genes in Acinetobacter baumannii "Exposure of a transposon insertion mutant library to extended weak antibiotic selection ... revealed genes that indirectly increased fitness due to elevated general mutation rates"

Fellow bacterial cell biologists, message me if you use @thermofishersci.bsky.social Gene Frames for microscopy! Thermo are planning to discontinue these in September but have indicated they will look into this further. If I make list of labs using them Thermo might not kill the product Please RT🔬🦠

The new open access policy of NIH will take effect next week (July 1st). All NIH funded research 🔬🧪🧬accepted after July 1st must be open access upon publication. Worried about fees? 💸 Check out how IAI stacks up against other journals—you might be surprised. #OpenAccess #SciComm #Microbiology

Just part of the Caulo crew at BCBD GRC. We would’ve gotten all the alphaphiles but it was too many people to herd into a pic!

Marie Curie fellowship, post-doc hosting oppotunity in my lab. MSCA Post-doctoral Fellowship at IBPC Paris on RNA modifications in bacteria (FRANCE) 🦠💫 euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/hosting...

🚨 Big news! Infection and Immunity is now open access! 🌍🔬 That means wider visibility & impact for your research. Worried about fees? 💸 Check out how IAI stacks up against other journals—you might be surprised. #OpenAccess #SciComm #Microbiology

Thousands of 3D protein structures locked up in big-pharma vaults will be used to create a new AI tool that won’t be open to academics. www.nature.com/artic...

For my first official post on here I have some news to share: the lab is moving! After ~12 wonderful years in the US, Muller lab 2.0 will reopen this summer at the Institute of Microbiology in Lausanne🇨🇭Switzerland🇨🇭! We'll be recruiting at all levels so keep us in mind for your future adventures!

Phage satellites are now known to be very diverse, numerous and ancient. They pose many evolutionary, ecological and mechanistic questions. Lots of fun in perspective! Great pleasure to write this review to show it, with @jrpenades.bsky.social @dbikard.bsky.social Kim Seed & John Chen.

We showed that iron import by a TonB-dependent receptor is important to tolerate copper excess, and this protein requires the activity of its oxygenase partner. Check to have the whole story ;)

Hi everyone! I am thrilled to finally share with you the result of my Ph.D. thesis. In this study, we used genetics and metal quantifications to study the link between iron and copper homeostasis in Caulobacter crescentus. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

We urge all leaders, for the good of their nations’ health, not to ignore or contradict advice that is supported by a consensus of evidence from research. https://go.nature.com/43Rfr5a

Lipopolysaccharide lateral mobility in the Gram-negative bacterial outer membrane is confined and governed by interactions within the conserved Lipid A anchor https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.10.642448v1

I just wrote to [email protected] to ask for a solution to welcome US scientists in Europe 🇺🇸🇪🇺 You can do the same if you wish...

Great talk on RNA modifications in bacteria by Zeynep Baharoglu @zeynepbaharoglu.bsky.social at the weekly IMM seminar today !

First PhD student finishing since I started my lab as a PI… Emotional moment 🥲 Fingers crossed for your public defense next week and already congrats @shiqiang.bsky.social 😎🍾👏🏻

Great idea. To add to this list, my institute @biozentrum.unibas.ch has a wonderful international PhD fellowship program: www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/phd/internat... Students do rotations and choose their PhD lab. Also great for students with quantitative background.

We are experiencing an assault on science unparalleled by anything I’ve seen in my life. It’s not one issue or another anymore, the entire institution is under attack by the most powerful individuals in the country. This Friday, where will you be? standupforscience2025.org

US national parks are among the most wonderful and spectacular of the planet. This action at Yosemite, a park that I know well and that I love, is a brilliant symbol of resistance against the fascism that has taken place at the WH. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/24/u...

Yes Archaea too can get fat 😁 New paper from the lab (by bsky-less Guillaume Borrel)! Check it out👇👇 #archaeasky #microsky @institutpasteur.bsky.social academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

Another week, another destination, another conference ! This week I had the chance (again) to present my work through a short talk at the #T4SSconference in Nancy 👩🏽‍🔬🇫🇷. I’m grateful to have had great discussions with such amazing people, specially from our Brucella community! @namurxa.bsky.social

I approve.

I had two grant proposals up for review in the NIH Bacterial Virulence (BV) study section. It was canceled without notice this morning. Without those grants, my lab must close within a year. And so the purge of scientific research in the US continues 🤬 #MicroSky 🦠🧫🧪🧬🔬

New preprint from the @remaut-lab.bsky.social ! Happy to share our latest work on a new member of the ENA family, protein fibers found on the spore’s surface. Using CryoID @mikesleutel.bsky.social identified F-ENA in BTK. The paper dives deep into its structure analysis by integrating X-ray and AF3

Please repost: Postdoc position in AI for drug discovery in a large collaboration with Dominique Beaini, Audrey Durand, Alex Hernández-García, Anne Marinier at Université de Montréal and Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA). www.linkedin.com/posts/yves-b...