Our SPARHA story is out in Nature Communications! doi.org/10.1038/s414... We investigated a new short pAgo-HNH defense system, showing that it assembles into filaments degrading cellular DNA, inducing abortive infection, resolved their structure, and uncovered the activation mechanism 🧵

Perfect timing in the field for a beautiful review on NAD+ in bacterial immunity by @hugovaysset.bsky.social and @audeber.bsky.social @cp-molcell.bsky.social #MicroSky www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

You’ve heard of ubiquitination, meet deazaguanylation: Doug Wassarman in our lab discovered phage defense pathways have co-opted Q nucleobase biosynthetic enzymes to catalyze a new form of protein conjugation chemistry @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Excited for the start of #argonautes2025 tomorrow! This year we're in Prague, @imgprague.bsky.social. Looking forward to sharing science and community with Argonaute aficionados and Argonaute Syndromes Alliance families! 🐙

News from the world of pAgos: We explored a distinct clade of short pAgos associated with HNH nuclease partners, which we named SPARHA, and discovered that they protect bacteria from phages and plasmids via abortive infection. Upon activation, SPARHA oligomerizes, forming filaments. A long 🧵

Very cool (and long-awaited) structures of the Lamassu/DdmABC defense system. Seems to be another weird TA-like system?

Wait... what !? 😱 A new family of RNA-guided systems in prokaryotes ! Mind-blowing !

What is the diversity of antiphage systems out there ? We used protein and genomic language models (and defense score!) to start bringing some answers: >45 000 protein families. Leb by E. Mordret. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Interactive UMAP to have fun mdmparis.github.io/antiphage-la...