Excited to annouce the latest research published by our lab, which is led by Dinesh Subedi and is out today in Nature Microbiology. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Now published as a Version of Record, with various new results compared to the initial preprint: Membrane binding properties of the cytoskeletal protein bactofilin Available at: elifesciences.org/articles/100... @synmikro.bsky.social @unimarburg.bsky.social @mpimicrobiomarburg.bsky.social

A recent cool preprint by John Whitney's lab on a new family of antibacterial proteins secreted by Gram-positive bacteria that enter and kill a broad spectrum of bacteria. Cell entry is receptor-independent and relies on cleavage by a co-secreted protease and the PMF. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New PrePrint from the Vecchiarelli and Mosalaganti (@shyamalm.bsky.social) labs! 🧵 Collaboration with the Giessen and Pi labs Congratulations to co-first authors Y Hoang (@hoanghamyy.bsky.social) and Pankaj Jadhav! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🚨 Microbiologists! We are recruiting Assistant / Associate Professors in 3 collaborative areas of our U. Pittsburgh School of Medicine. 1) MMG (my dept): fundamental research in med micro 2) Peds ID / I4Kids institute 3) Center for Vaccine Research 🔗 to all 3 w/info: www.linkedin.com/posts/vaughn...

We just opened the Bluesky account of the International Microbiology Literacy Initiative (IMiLI) headed by Ken Timmis. Follow us to know more about the initiative or even better become one of our volunteers to bring Microbiology to kids all ages around the world 🦠 🏫

Latest from Lizzie Ledger in the lab…. Very cool story demonstrating the cross reactivity of a single AMR mechanism to confer resistance/tolerance to two distinct classes of antibiotics. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Postdoc position available! This is a 2-year post funded by the Academy of Medical Sciences. You'll be based in the Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology here in Newcastle, using super-resolution microscopy to look at the bacterial cell wall. 🔬🦠 Please re-post 🙏 www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMY885/r...

DMV-area microbiologists! The ASM DC Branch/CAFPA Fall meeting is Fri Oct 17th at Howard U ft. keynote speaker Dr. Ed Dudley from Penn State. Abstracts for short and lightning talks from trainees is encouraged! Due by Sept 26 - for more info and to sign-up: www.washingtondcasm.org/2025-fall-me...

Our latest review is now live! Check out our thoughts on how the filamentous lifestyle of Actinomycetes and their ability to make a diverse array of natural products may be connected 👇: www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

The outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria blocks many antibiotics. Our latest work reveals that L-type pyocins bypass this barrier by inactivating the BAM complex, killing Pseudomonas aeruginosa without entering the cell, providing a new blueprint for beating antibiotic resistance.

We discovered a new family of c-di-NMP receptors, widespread in bacteria & regulating🦠motility @pnas.org A great collab. w/ @mygalperin.bsky.social @vikramalva.bsky.social @thethormannden.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @hhu.de @cmfi.bsky.social @sfb1381.bsky.social @mibinet.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #microsky

🚨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

Happy to share that our story on the bacterial archaellum was published today in @natmicrobiol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... Congrats to the authors: @sshamphavi.bsky.social @loumollat.bsky.social @mariejoest.bsky.social Najwa Taib and @sgribaldo.bsky.social

Really excited to share my first paper from the Whitney lab, alongside an amazing grad student, Polina. Here we identify a chaperone family required for the folding of a central domain of T7SS toxins, and solve the structure of the chaperone-toxin complex. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Very excited to share new work out today in @natchembio.nature.com on a new approach - FACES - for selectively imaging of phospholipids and other biomolecules at spatial resolutions down to individual membrane leaflets (1/n) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

JB Editor's Choice: Richardson & Pascal do a deep dive into the many iterations of bacterial two-hybrid systems and their uses in bacteria - a must read for those looking at protein-protein interactions. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... @asm.org #JBacteriology

hey bluesky 👋 visa hurdles mean I’m looking for opportunities outside the US. I’m a computational biologist (bacterial + phage genomics, postdoc in Koonin’s group @ NIH). I am interested in teaming up on funding apps. reach out if this resonates!

Peptidoglycan turnover promotes active transport of protein through the bacterial cell wall https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.12.675941v1

Class A PBPs reinforce the septal cell wall following initial synthesis by SEDS-bPBP pairs during bacterial cytokinesis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.12.675754v1

Immunization with peptides can elicit antigen-specific T cell responses, but they're not widely used because they are poorly immunogenic and are rapidly cleared. Domenico D'Atri solves this by using our "SSHEL" platform (synthetic bacterial spores) . journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Thrilled to see choanoflagellates can glide! I think this provide further support to the stunning complexity of the unicellular ancestor of animals, as we have been proposing. Congrats @thibautbrunet.bsky.social ! very nice work. #AnimalOrigins #choanos #multicellularity #protistsOnSky

Check out our new paper: a review of translational coupling, the phenomenon where translation of one prokaryotic gene can promote translation of the gene downstream. We cover the history, and delve into the mechanism, which is still not fully understood. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Horizontal Gene Transfer and Recombination in Cyanobacteriota www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... #jcampubs

Super cool Pseudomonas-Bacillus interaction paper in @natmicrobiol.nature.com from Yun Chen with @gabrieleberg.bsky.social Phenazines shape Gram+ abundance & influence Bacillus cell biology Phenazines contribute to microbiome dynamics by targeting topoisomerase IV www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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👇

How do loci for bacterial capsules (Klebsiella) manage to get swapped around despite their outstanding phenotypes? They just plug and play, having little impact on the rest of the genome. Kudos to @julielebris.bsky.social , check her thread below

Cool work by @mkjos.bsky.social Daniel Straume showing that the competence-induced peptidoglycan hydrolase LytF promotes pilus extrusion, thereby enhancing the efficiency of DNA uptake in S, sanguinis. Is this also a major function of the pneumococcal CbpD fratricide? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🧵 Our study on the elusive titration control mechanism of the replication initiator DnaA in Escherichia coli is now out on @natcomms.nature.com‬! @stephkoe.bsky.social @hohlbeinlab.bsky.social‬ @nicoc-micsynmet.bsky.social @ettema.bsky.social‬ @mib-wur.bsky.social doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Sugar phosphate-mediated inhibition of peptidoglycan precursor synthesis | mBio journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... #microsky

Calprotectin protects Staphylococcus aureus in coculture with Pseudomonas aeruginosa by attenuating quorum sensing and decreasing the production of pseudomonal antimicrobials #mSystems journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Excited about our most recent collaboration with the Wong lab, lead by William Schmidt, describing a T4P and CdrA-mediated mechanism of sensing surface EPS. Fun stuff and great work William and team. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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...

LytF contributes to pilus extrusion during natural competence in Streptococcus sanguinis SK36. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.04.674207v1

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... #MicroSky

So happy to see this publication finally out! Congratulations and thank you to all the authors! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Bacterial cell widening alters periplasmic size and activates envelope stress responses Kerwyn Huang, @typaslab.bsky.social et al find that E. coli outer-membrane protein RcsF senses reduced periplasm thickness due to increased cell width, & activates Rcs signaling www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Integrated genomic and proteomic analysis of the mouse-adapted Staphylococcus aureus strain JSNZ https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.03.674026v1

Ultrastrong Staphylococcus aureus adhesion to human skin: Calcium as a key regulator of noncovalent interactions

Attention DC area microbiologists! Save the date for CAPFA/ASM DC Branch's Fall Meeting Friday, Oct. 17th at Howard University. More info: www.washingtondcasm.org/2025-fall-me... @asmdcbranch.bsky.social

Accepted! Stay tuned for the final version...

Cool preprint by Mathieu Berge @polardlab.bsky.social showing that the Spr1630 toxin (RipA) toxin targets the replication sliding-clamp (DnaN) and that this induces competence in Streptococcus pneumoniae. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🚨 🚨 🗓️ The deadline to submit your abstract for the #ASCB2025 meeting in Philadelphia is this Wednesday, September 3!! Dyche Mullins and I are hosting the session “Cell Biology at the Extremes”. Thermophiles, psychrophiles, tardigrades, giant bacteria… now is your time to shine!! 🚨

Prokaryotic Circadian Systems: Cyanobacteria and Beyond #AnnuRevMicrobiol from Susan Golden with @partchlab.bsky.social #chronobiology www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

@cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social Microbe of the Month by @martillatorres.bsky.social et al Bacillus velezensis www.cell.com/trends/micro...

Here we show that >90% of Paenibacillus encode a unique Spo0B with a transmembrane domain! TM domain helps it interact with its phosphorelay partners. Congrats to @isabellalin.bsky.social who left for grad school this week and her mentor @cassidyprints.bsky.social! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Happy to participate in this work by Alejandro Velázquez-Cruz from Irene Díaz-Moreno lab in collaboration with Jackie Wilce and R. Fernández-Chacón:

My MCDB dept is accepting applications for a faculty position at the Assistant Professor level! Applications Due by October 15, 2025 We welcome applications from all areas of physiology and neuroscience, spanning molecular, cellular, systems, and organismal levels. lsa.umich.edu/mcdb/news-ev...