João Botelho
@joaoftsbotelho.bsky.social
1.9K followers 1.2K following 120 posts
CEEC Researcher at UCP 🇵🇹 https://sciproj.ptcris.pt/en/12767EEC Before: Maria Zambrano fellow @cbgpmadrid.bsky.social 🇪🇸 and postdoc at Max Planck Institute 🇩🇪 MGEs, AMR, defense systems https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_Sz69QgAAAAJ&hl=en
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Reposted by João Botelho
Is a healthy microbiome one that is rich in phages? 🦠 Excited to share our paper out in Lancet Microbe with @bkoskella.bsky.social & @dholtappels.bsky.social where we test whether virome diversity can be used a broad signature of microbiome health 📈
New research article

Evaluation of bacteriophages as a signature of #microbiome health: a systematic review and meta-analysis

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

#IDSky #ClinMicro #ViroSky #Phage #OpenAccess #OA
What an amazing story and tour de force!
Reposted by João Botelho
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👇
Pre- and postantibiotic epoch: The historical spread of antimicrobial resistance
Plasmids are now the primary vectors of antimicrobial resistance, but our understanding of how human industrialisation of antibiotics influenced their evolution is limited by a paucity of data predati...
doi.org
Reposted by João Botelho
OK, here it is. Come work with me at the University of Liverpool making ALL THE AI models from ALL THE prokaryote pangenome data. Heck, we will make models from ALL the pangenomes, even eukaryotes!!! (link below👇) 1/4
Thanks for the kind words Rachel! Your work on CRISPR-Cas and Pa was a big inspiration for those papers!
Amazing news, congratulations 🎉
Congratulations François!
Reposted by João Botelho
Thrilled to see our Kiwa story out today! A membrane-associated supercomplex that senses infection and blocks replication and transcription.

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Huge congratulations to Yi and Zhiying for bringing it home, to Thomas for starting us off, and to all the collaborators.
Kiwa is a membrane-embedded defense supercomplex activated at phage attachment sites
Zhang, Todeschini, and Wu et al. show that the bacterial defense system Kiwa senses phage attachment at the membrane and assembles a transmembrane complex that halts infection by blocking phage DNA re...
www.cell.com
Reposted by João Botelho
Reposted by João Botelho
🦠🧍‍♀️From bacterial to human immunity.

We report in @science.org the discovery of a human homolog of SIR2 antiphage proteins that participates in the TLR pathway of animal innate immunity.
Co-led wt @enzopoirier.bsky.social by D. Bonhomme and @hugovaysset.bsky.social

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org
Reposted by João Botelho
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/...
graphical abstract of the article the extended mobility of plasmids
Reposted by João Botelho
And the story is published now!🍾
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Open access link: rdcu.be/exnOc

Many years in the making, great collaboration with @archaellum.bsky.social & @tunglejic.bsky.social

Thanks @ukri.org BBSRC & @leverhulme.ac.uk for funding, reviewers & editor!! 🙏
#microsky #archaeasky
Reposted by João Botelho
🚨 Reminder! You have just over two weeks to submit an abstract, if you want to present at the @microbiologysociety.org meeting "Understanding and predicting microbial evolutionary dynamics" in Liverpool in November! #microsky 🦠🧫🔬
‼️Update! Abstract submission is now open for the 2025 Liverpool UK @microbiologysociety.org meeting on "Understanding and predicting microbial evolutionary dynamics”! Deadline July 7th #microsky 🧪🧫🦠 microbiologysociety.org/event/societ...
It was a great conference! Thanks Franklin, Esme, Michelle, Daniela and all involved. Hope to see you next year 😀
Reposted by João Botelho
Thank you to everyone who attended the 3rd UK MGE workshop. What an incredible few days of science and community building! Next stop: York 2026, hosted by @pcmfogg.bsky.social. See you all next year! #UKMGE