@prczhaoyansong.bsky.social’s deep dive into the dark matter of compost communities is now out 🎉 Genomic islands hijack jumbo phages—whose capsids enable transfer of large tracts of DNA—shedding new light on the scale & scope of phage-mediated gene flow 😎 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

New pre-print: Plasmid dependent phage effectively eliminate AMR bacteria and block plasmid transmission in the chicken gut microbiome Fun collaboration with Tao He lab (JAAS) and @brockhurstlab.bsky.social lab (Manchester) #phagesky#microsky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New paper with my (amazing) friend and mentor @jrpenades.bsky.social Really looking forward to see what plasmid aficionados think of this one!! With @asantoslopez.bsky.social @wfigueroac3.bsky.social Akshay Sabins and others www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Independent research fellowships leading to tenured positions at the John Innes Centre. Repost = nice. Thank you very much!!!

The time has come for you to listen to the next session of the ISPB Virtual Seminar Series. Tuesday, October 14th, from 07:00–08:00 UTC. Two new speakers, two great new stories. Do not miss them! #ISPB #Plasmid #MGEs

Can we exploit past phage infection events (prophages) to decipher the specificity of phage receptor-binding proteins such as depolymerases?🔎 Happy to share our recent work at @natcomms.nature.com 🔽 #microsky #phagesky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Type IV secretion systems: from structures to mechanisms Kévin Macé and colleagues summarize recent structural insights into the assembly and function of bacterial type IV secretion systems www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

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

A plasmid and an ICE teaming up... 🤯😱 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Delighted to see our paper studying the evolution of plasmids over the last 100 years, now out! Years of work by Adrian Cazares, also Nick Thomson @sangerinstitute.bsky.social - this version much improved over the preprint. Final version should be open access, apols. Thread 1/n

Exclusion systems, far from slowing down plasmid spread, are in fact essential to preserve host cell viability and thereby ensure the successful dissemination of conjugative plasmids and antibiotic resistance genes. @nfrk92.bsky.social @narjournal.bsky.social academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Hey hey hey! Tomorrow, September 16th at 16:00 UTC, don’t miss the next ISPB virtual seminar! This session will focus on plasmid elimination with great speakers lined up. #Plasmid #ISPB #MGEs

How complex functions, with important physiological and evolutionary impacts get repeatedly and efficiently transferred across genomes? That’s what we explored using one of the fastest-evolving loci in Bacteria: the capsule locus. The paper: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Thread👇

Looking for a new approach to studying or eliminating phages? Check out our study introducing anti-phage ASOs (antisense oligos) out in @Nature today. nature.com/articles/s4158…

Pseudomonas aeruginosa senses exopolysaccharide trails using type IV pili and adhesins during biofilm formation by O'Toole, Parsek, & Wong groups www.nature.com/articles/s41...

So excited our antibiotic potentiation story is out 🤩 Led by the extraordinary @manonlang.bsky.social with @fox-science.bsky.social & @amazeld.bsky.social +amazing collaborators @immunobladder.bsky.social @imaneelmeouche.bsky.social 🦠 We believe it can make a difference in #AMR infections!

Delighted to share our recently published work! Ever wondered how Klebsiella (and others) deals with capsule production’s costs ? The paper: journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... Thread👇

PhD opportunity, please share: We are looking for a prospective PhD student to start in October 2026 who is excited about bacteria (Klebsiella pneumoniae), how they interact, and how they exchange DNA. All details can be found on the funder website 👉 gw4biomed.ac.uk/developing-c...

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 paper “Genetic determinants of pOXA-48 plasmid maintenance and propagation in Escherichia coli” is now online in @natcomms.nature.com ✨ 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41... @cnrs-rhoneauvergne.bsky.social @mmsb-lyon.bsky.social

For those who love bacterial replicons, The ultimate review, from our lab, signed by the master of their evolution. ‪@val-meve.bsky.social‬ www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New paper in collaboration with the @asantoslopez.bsky.social lab! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New pre-print from my lab! Plasmids link antibiotic resistance and phage defense. E.coli plasmids are hotspots for both antibiotic resistance and phage defense. Phage therapy has the potential to accidentally select for antibiotic resistance!!! #microsky#AMR#phage www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1....

📢 Postdoctoral research position A 2-year postdoctoral position on bacteriophages research is available at the Institut Pasteur in Paris in the Plasticity of the Genomes Unit. 🧐 Those interested can now send their applications!

Excited 🥳 to share our latest work on gut phages! Big thanks to @epcrocha.bsky.social, Erick D, Camille d'H, @fplazaonate.bsky.social, Quentin LB, and all others involved for support and contributions! 🙌 Out in Cell Reports @cp-cellreports.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.ce... Here's what we found 🤓

🚨🚨 New paper in @narjournal.bsky.social! 🍾 Excludons are pairs of overlapping genes that block each other’s expression (basically, reverse operons). We built a tool to identify them in bacterial genomes using transcriptomic data, in an awesome collab led by Iñigo Lasa and Álvaro San Martín. 👇

My first first-authored paper is now out ahead of print in #mBio. It was a loooong way between journals, but here we are with a result that I believe will be highly relevant for anyone interested in microbiology and evolution! 🦠🧬 👇 journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

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/...

New paper alert! 🚨 Plasmids promote bacterial evolution through a copy number-driven increase in mutation rate. We combine theory, simulations, experimental evolution, and bioinformatics to demonstrate that mutation rates scale with plasmid copy number. Let's dive in! 🧵👇

Unexpected side-effect: how common medications clear the way for pathogens CMFI's @lisamaierlab.bsky.social @unituebingen.bsky.social show in @nature.com: many non-antibiotics weaken the natural protective function of the intestine. Press release: www.cmfi.uni-tuebingen.de/en/news-even...

New paper with @rwheatley8.bsky.social and Cedric Lood Actual title: Chromosomal capture of beneficial genes drives plasmids towards ecological redundancy. Sensationalist title: Plasmids carry useless genes academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...

Now published, congrats Bevika, Kinki, Vincent, Florian and Paddy! #MicroSky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Heads up! 📢 The 5th Session of the ISPB Virtual Seminars is tomorrow, from 8:00 to 9:00 UTC. Hope to see you there virtually! #Plasmid #ISPB #VirtualSeminar

Scaling laws of bacterial and archaeal plasmids www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

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/.

Curious about plasmid biology? Our latest paper is out now in Nature Communications! 🚨 doi.org/10.1038/s414... We analyzed thousands of diverse bacterial plasmids to shed light for the first time on a key aspect of plasmid biology: plasmid copy number. 1/7 👇

A robust in vivo method for engineering plasmid DNA in E. coli using a triple-selection system that works at any copy number, enabling fast, scalable construction of standardized plasmids for synthetic biology applications. @norholm.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s42...

1/10 New pre-print(s) from the Sternberg Lab in collaboration with Leifu Chang's Lab! We uncover the unprecedented molecular mechanism of CRISPR-Cas12f-like proteins, which drive RNA-guided transcription independently of canonical promoter motifs. Full story here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Hey! Reminder ‼️ Today we’ll enjoy another session of the ISPB Virtual Seminar Series from 16:00 to 17:00 (UTC). Join us for some great science! #Plasmids #MGEs #ISPB

Through the new PLASFIGHTER project, we drive significant advances in unravelling and fighting AMR. We study plasmid-bacteria interactions to answer important questions about their role in generating and maintaining superbugs. Discover the project ➡️ plasmidlab.es/project/  #AntibioticResistance

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...

www.nature.com/articles/s41... Type IV pili versatility never cease to amaze. In this case, used by Myxococcus can thus to grab and kill other bacteria

New opinion paper from the lab! www.cell.com/trends/micro...

1/6 Excited to share our review 🚀 🧬 CRISPR–Cas therapies targeting bacteria! #MicroSky

Heey! ✋ If you missed the live session of the ISPB Virtual Seminar Series, there's still time to catch up and enjoy the great work of Zhengqing Zhou and Alicia Calvo Villamañán. Huge thanks to the speakers and the organizers!! 🫂

I *finally* get to share our work on plasmid competition– super proud to now have this on bioRxiv: CRISPR-Cas is beneficial in plasmid competition, but limited by competitor toxin-antitoxin activity when horizontally transferred www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/6 👇

White smoke, we have a new pope and also 16 new anti-phages systems in sedentary integrons (SCIs) ! In collaboration with the Rocha lab, we show in our new paper that cassettes of these large platforms encode many known anti-phage defenses, and uncovered 16 new ones. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

At least 10% of the V. cholerae integron cassettes have novel antiphage activities (see below). Considering that there are 25,000 distinct cassettes of unknown function, integrons constitute an extraordinary and almost inexhaustible reservoir of antiphage functions!

New Research Assistant position available in my lab to work on a project testing the efficacy of pills dependent #phage against clinical isolates of enteric bacteria . Part of a growing phage research theme in my lab my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

🧪 Finally out after peer review, our work showing that "Mobile #Integrons carry Phage Defense Systems" is now published in Science 🎉 Short 🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...