Amazing findings in geometry-based immune activation! Two bacterial defence systems detect phage-encoded ring oligomers, assemble high-order molecular complexes, and trigger abortive infection.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I’m thrilled to share our work on phage triggers of the bacterial immune system in its final form @natmicrobiol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

NLR-like immunity in bacteria

A new study from the Alex Gao lab. The scope of this work is incredible!!!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Vaults. They are cell biology's greatest puzzle! This preprint from Martin Beck's lab shows them docked on ER membranes with a ribosome inside. What on earth is going on there??

#CellBiology #WTFology

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Bacterial genomes encode a rich repertoire of antiphage systems, but we still know surprisingly little about when these systems are actually expressed.

In this preprint, Lucas Paoli et al, ask what shapes antiphage systems expression in native contexts.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

We propose immuno-centric view of secreted polymorphic toxin diversification and involvement of novel XPC systems in this process! Fantastic work of @jmartinkus.bsky.social with lab of @cascaleslab.bsky.social !
www.cell.com/current-biol...

De novo origin of numerous microproteins in enterobacteria

Igor Fesenko, Svetlana A Shabalina, Gisela Storz, Eugene V Koonin.
Nucleic Acids Research, Volume 53, Issue 22, 11 December 2025
doi.org/10.1093/nar/...

Phages are full of genes of unknown function that are likely adaptive in specific conditions.
New preprint: Phage TnSeq identifies essential genes rapidly and knocks all non-essentials. We would like to send a pool of phiKZ mutants to anyone wanting it! Reach out
tinyurl.com/bdcfrejh

Hot off the press! Our latest paper led by @fernpizza.bsky.social, understanding how plasmids evolve inside cells. These small, self-replicating DNA circles live inside bacteria and carry antibiotic resistance genes, but also compete with one another to replicate. 1/
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🚨Preprint alert - this is a big one! We transfer the revolutionary power of TnSeq to bacteriophages.

Our HIDEN-SEQ links the "dark matter" genes of your favorite phage to any selectable phenotype, guiding the path from fun observations to molecular mechanisms.

A thread 1/8

Very happy to share our collaborative project on FAM118 proteins - noncanonical sirtuins that form filaments and process NAD in human and other vertebrate cells.

The Wilkinson Lab is open for science! @mskcancercenter.bsky.social

🧬We'll be finding funky new RNA biology, mainly by looking at reverse transcriptases (i.e. the Best Enzymes In The World)🧬

annnd: I'm hiring - come join! Especially postdocs and PhD students - please get in touch (NYC is great)

Beautiful preprint from Simone Evans et al. in Alex Gao's group looking at MBL/nuclease and other cool zymogens (pepco, EACC1) in antiphage defense systems. Great to see this paradigm extended - probably many more proteolytically activated effectors out there...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our nuclease-protease story is out! We explored a fascinating case of coevolution and modularity in prokaryotic immune systems: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Thanks to wonderful coauthors/collaborators/friends, the whole @doudna-lab.bsky.social and everyone at @innovativegenomics.bsky.social

I am so excited to share our project with you! We find prokaryotic proteases activate toxic enzymes and pores as a modular strategy in phage defense. We studied four fascinating protease-toxin pairs that are abundant across bacterial genomes:

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