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José R Penadés

@jrpenades.bsky.social

300 followers 19 following 9 posts

Frustrated football player, I moved to a less relevant work: microbiologist interested on mobile genetic elements

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Biology 59%

Environmental science 21%

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Reposted by José R. Penadés

Eduardo Rocha @epcrocha.bsky.social · 13h

Two intensive sampling periods of oyster-associated vibrio and their phage, 4 years apart, and many surprises. Despite being washed by the Atlantic, wide tides, and vibrio (almost?) disappearing most of the year, we can find the exact same virulent phages 4 years later (down to 0 SNP)! preprint👇

Lytic phages form modular isolation networks and exhibit long-term genetic stability

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José R Penadés @jrpenades.bsky.social · 16h

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...

Phages communicate across species to shape microbial ecosystems

Arbitrium is a communication system that helps bacteriophages decide between lysis and lysogeny via secreted peptides. In arbitrium, the AimP peptide binds its cognate AimR receptor to repress aimX ex...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by José R. Penadés

Michael Brockhurst @brockhurstlab.bsky.social · 8d

PS Simon’s tail fibre protein structure models showing the variants causing altered surface receptor binding specificity are Lovell-y

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Reposted by José R. Penadés

Michael Brockhurst @brockhurstlab.bsky.social · 8d

5-years in the making this paper has been a real journey!

Also, a fun collaboration with @frimanscience.bsky.social @jofoth.bsky.social Edze Westra, Simon Lovell, Aras Kadioglu

#mevosky #phagesky

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Reposted by Jesse M. Shapiro, Simon Roux, José R. Penadés , and 1 more Jesse M. Shapiro, Simon Roux, José R. Penadés, Alan McNally

Michael Brockhurst @brockhurstlab.bsky.social · 8d

New preprint!

Ever wondered why only a fraction of genomes encode CRISPR immunity? 🧬 🦠

Turns out CRISPR is rarely beneficial against virulent phages, being most beneficial against those for which resistance mutations are rare!

An epic effort by Rosanna Wright

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Resistance mutation supply modulates the benefit of CRISPR immunity against virulent phages

Only a fraction of bacterial genomes encode CRISPR-Cas systems but the selective causes of this variation are unexplained. How naturally virulent bacteriophages (phages) select for CRISPR immunity has...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by José R. Penadés

bioRxiv Microbiology @biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · 10d

The Staphylococcus aureus LXG-domain toxins EsxX and SAR0287 do not promote virulence in a zebrafish larval infection model https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.04.680436v1

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Reposted by José R. Penadés

Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB) @cnb-csic.bsky.social · 12d

El proyecto "Descubrir actividades de resistencia antimicrobiana más allá de la resistencia" de
@sanmillan.bsky.social (#CNB, @csic.es) y @jaescudero.bsky.social (@ucm.es) recibe una ayuda del Programa #Fundamentos de Fundación BBVA.

ℹ️Lee la noticia aquí👇

bit.ly/48cvkp1

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Reposted by José R. Penadés

Craig MacLean @craigmaclean.bsky.social · 14d

Builds on pre-print posted earlier this week and gratuitously reposted here

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

Evolutionary rescue accelerates competitive exclusion in a parasite community

Environmental stress drives biodiversity loss by altering competitive hierarchies and pushing taxa towards extinction. Parasites and their communities are particularly vulnerable to stress due to envi...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Jesse M. Shapiro, José R. Penadés

Craig MacLean @craigmaclean.bsky.social · 14d

New pre-print
Competition between phage constrains adaptation to thermal fluctuating temperatures.
More work led by Sam Greenrod in collaboration with @kayla-king.bsky.social lab.
#Phagesky#Microsky

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by José R. Penadés, Alan McNally

Andy Edwards @bugsinblood.bsky.social · 15d

Now published! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Very nice collaboration with Hoogenboom ( @ucl.ac.uk ) and Bonev ( @uniofnottingham.bsky.social ) labs.

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Reposted by José R. Penadés

Craig MacLean @craigmaclean.bsky.social · 15d

New pre-print: Eco-evolutionary responses of phage to different thermal regimes.

Great work led by Sam Greenrod and fun collaboration with Kayla King's lab.
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www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Evolutionary rescue accelerates competitive exclusion in a parasite community

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by José R. Penadés, Alan McNally

Michael Brockhurst @brockhurstlab.bsky.social · 18d

Now peer-reviewed, improved and published in @microbiologysociety.org Microbiology - thanks to editor and reviewers!

www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

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Reposted by Jesse M. Shapiro, Simon Roux, José R. Penadés

Zamin Iqbal @zaminiqbal.bsky.social · 19d

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

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Reposted by José R. Penadés, Alan McNally

Joe Wanford @jwanford.bsky.social · 29d

🎉 Delighted to share the first pre-print from my lab where we demonstrate that intergenic DNA repeats mediate phase variation of the mucoid phenotype in hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #klebclub

Simple Sequence Repeats Mediate Phase Variation of the Mucoid Phenotype in Hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae

Hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae (HVKp) express a thick mucoid capsular polysaccharide which is essential for virulence and survival in the bloodstream but inhibits epithelial adhesion and invasion...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by José R. Penadés

Alice Maestri @alicemaestri.bsky.social · Sep 12

We're looking for a technician at Institut Pasteur for experimental work on satellite-phage-bacteria interactions, working directly with @jmouradesousa.bsky.social and myself in the lab of @epcrocha.bsky.social ! ANR funded.

Link to the job emploi.pasteur.fr/offre-de-emp...
Thx for sharing!

INSTITUT PASTEUR - Technicien de recherche Microbiologie H/F

emploi.pasteur.fr

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Reposted by José R. Penadés

Reposted by Simon Roux, Nicole Dubilier, José R. Penadés , and 1 more Simon Roux, Nicole Dubilier, José R. Penadés, Alan McNally

Jörg Vogel @jorg-vogel-lab.bsky.social · Sep 10

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…

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Reposted by José R. Penadés

Reposted by Demis Hassabis, José R. Penadés

Reposted by José R. Penadés

José R Penadés @jrpenades.bsky.social · Sep 9

Our second paper with @tcostalab.bsky.social and GoogleDeepMind
reports our experience with Google’s co-scientist: remarkably, the AI independently recapitulated our experimental discovery on cf-PICIs, showcasing AI’s potential to accelerate biology.
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

AI mirrors experimental science to uncover a mechanism of gene transfer crucial to bacterial evolution

By solving a previously unsolved biological question, the AI co-scientist predicted a complex mechanism of gene transfer and generated hypotheses that opened new research directions, illustrating AI's...

www.cell.com

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José R Penadés @jrpenades.bsky.social · Sep 9

Thrilled to share our two latest papers with the @tcostalab.bsky.social
lab! In the first, we uncover a new mechanism of satellite transfer: cf-PICIs hijack tails from diverse phages to spread across species.
@imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Chimeric infective particles expand species boundaries in phage-inducible chromosomal island mobilization

Capsid-forming PICIs (cf-PICIs) produce their own capsids and exploit phage tails from unrelated species to transfer their DNA across bacterial hosts. This tail piracy enables broad dissemination and ...

www.cell.com

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