New preprint alert!!! 🚀🤓 We are very happy to finally share this with the world — the result of seven years of work and a new tool to study integrons and discover new functions encoded in these bacterial platforms. If you want to know more, here is a thread 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Final version of our last paper is out! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New preprint out on bioRxiv! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Can conjugative plasmids be used to control plasmid and pathogen spread? Follow me down the rabbit hole that led to this story 🧵

New preprint on the limits of detecting higher-order interactions in microbial communities. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We find that the dominance of additive and pairwise interactions on community function may not reflect biological simplicity, but fundamental limits of statistical detection.

Excited to share our latest work! 📝 We measured the fitness effect of 136 AMR genes and found that many are neutral or even beneficial without selection. 🤯🧬 Oxygen availability can flip their fitness and our stochastic model indicates that oxygen fluctuations help maintain them. Learn more 👇🏼

Here we go again!!! 🤟🏻🧑🏼‍🔬

New paper out in PNAS!!! 🎉 Do more plasmid copies mean faster evolution? 🧵 Dive into the story www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Epromoters bind key stress-related transcription factors to regulate clusters of stress response genes Salvatore @spicuglia.bsky.social and coworkers link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Spx inhibits expression of the SwrA•DegU master flagellar activator in Bacillus subtilis -in JBacteriol journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

This week is World #AntimicrobialResistance Awareness week This article collection spans the breadth of #AMR across pathogens (bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites), covers epidemiological monitoring, diagnostics, treatment, etc

Do plasmids really move around that much? Well, maybe not always Thrilled to have contributed to this story with two of my favourite microbiologists: @jrpenades.bsky.social & @sanmillan.bsky.social This great work was led by Akshay Sabnis & @wfigueroac3.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell-reports...

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... #phagesky #phage defence #synbio #microsky

Our latest work reveals that arbitrium phages cross-communicate across species! These tiny viruses “listen” to signals from others, coordinating lysis-lysogeny decisions across species. Original idea from @albertomarina.bsky.social and, as usual, he was right. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New pre-print www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Plasmid-dependent phage (PDPs) are ubiquitous, but the selective pressures that they impose on plasmids are not well understood. Project led by Daniel Cazares in collaboration with @brockhurstlab.bsky.social! #phagesky#microsky

Imagine we could travel back in time ⏪⌛️to explore the world of bacterial pathogens before humans discovered and industrialised antibiotics We just did that to study the history of #AMR spread @science.org doi.org/10.1126/scie... If you like time travel & biology, this 🧵is for you👇

Creativity keeps your brain young 🎸

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

I am so proud to be part of this work, that we initiated Fernando de la Cruz and I, when he was on sabbatical in my lab in 2009... it took so much time for this achievement, 1000 thanks to Raúl Fernández-López! this brought me back to my PhD on cyanobacteria genetics. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Hydrogen sulfide production distinguishes Salmonella from close relatives, but its biological significance remains obscure. This study uncovers the secret: Salmonella uses hydrogen sulfide production as a weapon to outcompete E. coli and gain a foothold in the gut. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

El próximo 5 de septiembre en nuestro #47congresosebbm tendrá lugar la entrega del Premio Fundación Lilly a la Mejor Tesis Doctoral en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular a Alberto Hipólito Carrillo por el trabajo de su tesis. https://f.mtr.cool/rnstpoiucs

New paper out!

This work is finally published! 🥳🧬 Plasmids are associated with very variable fitness costs in their different bacterial hosts. But, what is the contribution of each of the plasmid-genes in these host-specific effects? Study led by @jorgesastred.bsky.social, @sanmillan.bsky.social and myself! 1/14

Our new manuscript is out! A bit of everything cool: Plasmids ✅ Insertion Sequences ✅ AMR Evolution ✅ Microbial Communities ✅ Databases analyses ✅ Mathematical modeling ✅ See the scientific thread below of Jorge Sastre, who has brilliantly led this work with @palomarodera.bsky.social

New paper out! 🔈🔈📣📣 Plasmids promote antimicrobial resistance through Insertion Sequence-mediated gene inactivation. Combining experimental and computational approaches, we unveil how two of the most prevalent bacterial MGE accelerate the evolution of AMR. 🧵👇🏻 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

1/16 New pre-print from the Sternberg Lab! We uncover how temperate phages can use RNA-guided transcription factors to remodel the flagellar composition of their bacterial host and enhance their fitness. Find the preprint and full story here: tinyurl.com/mshwjd77

Do plasmids evolve faster 🐇, slower 🐢, or just like chromosomes 🧬? In our new paper, we tackled this question using theory, simulations, bioinformatics, and experiments! 👇 Check out all the details in Paula’s thread! Hint: 🐇 (most of the time)

Here's our new broad review on the extended mobility of plasmids, about all mechanisms driving and limiting their transfer. From conjugation to conduction, phage-plasmids to hitchers, molecular to evolutionary dynamics, ecology to biotech. The state of affairs. 1/9 academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Experimental evolution in an era of molecular manipulation #ExperimentalEvolution #evolution #evoSky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Great work from great people! Congrats @cserna.bsky.social 🤟🏻

Words cannot describe how excited I am to share the findings from the second half of my postdoc in @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social's lab where we discover that bacteria use functional amyloids to defend themselves from predatory bacteria. rdcu.be/euu5Y. See thread for details on this epic adventure 1/.

Our paper demonstrating that within-species warfare interactions are ecologically important on human skin is now published in Nature Micro! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🦠 Nuestro #articulodelmes habla sobre cómo los integrones móviles codifican sistemas de defensa contra fagos de la mano del grupo investigador liderado por el Dr. José Antonio Escudero 📄https://f.mtr.cool/qxwueostwp

Super honored to get the Best PhD Thesis award from @sebbm.bsky.social 🎓✨ Big thanks to everyone who supported me along the way. Huge congrats to all the other amazing winners too! 🙌

For our first post on Bluesky, we're excited to share our recent work published in mBio @asm.org! Led by PhD student @madeofmicrobes.bsky.social, we show that flagellar motility and interactions with the mucus environment influence Pseudomonas antibiotic tolerance. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

🧫🦠🔬🧬 @science.org Mobile integrons encode phage defense systems | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @jaescudero.bsky.social @albertohca.bsky.social et al. #microbiology #phage #immunity #phagesky #MicroSky

What a milestone!!! I’m really glad I got to add my two cents to the growing knowledge about integrons — this paper is totally worth checking out!

Can resistance genes really hold their breath like pros? 🤔🤿 Outstanding work by Laura, Amalia, Nico and Ester from @jaescudero.bsky.social lab in collab with @sanmillan.bsky.social, Fernando Baquero and Rafael Cantón. Dive into our latest paper to find out! 👇🏼 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Excited to share the first preprint from my lab, collaborating with the fantastic @sanmillan.bsky.social 's lab, led by the amazing Jorge Sastre. We've demonstrated how insertion sequences encoded in plasmids promote bacterial adaptation. This project has been incredibly fun!

Really like this paper from @fnobrega.bsky.social and co - some defense systems statistically co-occur with each other across genomes and correspondingly show synergistic effects in vitro Bacterial defense systems exhibit synergistic anti-phage activity www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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And its out! New paper for #integron aficionados. We found gene-less cassettes in superintegrons that express/silence other cassettes in the array. Here is a 🧵(if I know how to do this in Bluesky...😆) academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

Integron cassettes integrate into bacterial genomes via widespread non-classical attG sites www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

Scientists hail new #antibiotic that can kill drug-resistant bacteria - & including quotes from the awesome @bugsinblood.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/science/2024... & Original research paper here www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Pictures Considered #62 : A New Twist on Satellite Phages by Roberto   In the phage universe, there are many examples of so-called satellite phages (or satellite phage-like elements) whose propagation depends on helper phages. Outside the... Read more > tinyurl.com/38sj78fs #MicroSky #phagesky

Can we predict AMR evolution?? We sure can try! New study published today in PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

This week we had our annual meeting for the JPIAMR project MOB-TARGET. Two days of great scientific exchange and lots of fun at the Residencia de Estudiantes-CSIC in Madrid @craigmaclean.bsky.social @brockhurstlab.bsky.social @jaescudero.bsky.social @amazeld.bsky.social