Then @thombooth.bsky.social used the presence/absence of known telomere proteins to identify a potentially new telomere protein which is linked to the Sg2247 class telomere, which previously did not have an identified maintenance system (notice the dot in the red circle)

It really was a pleasure!

Is it time to start calling out the scientific board? Why aren't these people laughed out of town?

A great story begun by Siobhan Dorai-Raj and taken over the line by @thombooth.bsky.social and Juan Pablo Gomez-Escribano. It's been tremendous fun and wonderful to watch old lab members become collaborators and leaders!

I should also add, thanks to you Susan! And everyone else who gave feedback at ISBA. It was incredibly helpful!

Is this what they were talking about when they said 'ignorance is bliss'?

I can't reach you on here apparently, but I will send you an email tomorrow. :)

Hi! Thanks for the kind words! It is reassuring to see other people as excited about this as we are! I'll send you a DM now! :)

Sorry David, I forgot to tag you! @tweakyaustin.bsky.social

Also to all the funders and institutions involved: @leibniz-dsmz.bsky.social, @johninnescentre.bsky.social, @earlhaminst.bsky.social, @dtu.dk, @novo-nordisk.bsky.social and the BBSRC.

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I want to thank everyone involved in this project: Juan Pablo Gomez-Escribano, Siobhan Dorai-Raj, David Baker, Ern Lacey and Barrie Wilkinson (@barriewilks.bsky.social)!

A truly international effort.

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Also of note, EEC1 is chock-full of biosynthetic gene clusters - it is more than twice as dense as the genome. Since all the known metabolites from E. australiensis are encoded on the chromosome, EEC1-like replicons are a unique reservoir of new natural products!

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Fascinatingly, EEC1 is different to proteobacterial secondary chromosomes (chromids) as it does not appear to replicate like a plasmid. This suggests an evolutionary mechanism distinct from that of chromids, which are believed to have evolved from plasmids.

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