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🚨 🧬 Updated preprint on the completed BASEL collection - what's new? Some fun with bacterial immunity and a new P22 relative infecting E. coli K-12. A thread 🧵

New mechanism of gene transfer! With Tiago Costa CBRB, cf-PICIs form tail-less elements that, once released, spread among different bacterial species by hijacking tails from various phages. More exciting news soon! shorturl.at/kRJqE

Imagine that you are a low-copy extra-chromosomal genetic elements that invaded a host cell. What’s your best strategy to survive? Check our new study of prokaryotic #plasmid for the answer! biorxiv.org/content/10.110… led by Johannes Effe with Mario Santer Wang, Yiqing Nils Hülter

Zoogle! Our new tool from @arcadiascience for picking research organisms. Even if you’re not a scientist, you should care that we spend >$50B/yr on clinical trials based on organismal models (>90% failure rate). Read more about Zoogle here: arcadiascience.com/blog/zoogle

RNA-guided systems span kingdoms, from bacterial immunity to eukaryotic gene regulation. How did they evolve? We traced the origins of CRISPR-Cas13 and identified its likely ancestor: an RNA-based toxin-antitoxin (TA) system. Here’s what we uncovered: cell.com/cell/fulltext/… 1/8

ActSeek: Fast and accurate search algorithm of active sites in Alphafold database 1. ActSeek introduces a novel approach to searching protein databases for similar active sites using a fast algorithm inspired by computer vision, enhancing the search for proteins with specific

It is finally out! Muntathar Al-Shimary, Doudna Lab, Brady Cress and I present a gene knockdown tool that works in diverse phages: CRISPRi through antisense RNA Targeting (CRISPRi-ART)! Check out the final paper in Nature Microbiology nature.com/articles/s4156…

We are excited to report the discovery of TIGRs, a widely-occurring RNA-guided system found in bacteria and their viruses. TIGRs consist of a peculiar repeat region which is transcribed into RNA and processed into multiple guide RNAs to direct TIGR-associated proteins to their

Pseudomonads coordinate innate defense against viruses and bacteria with a single regulatory system biorxiv.org/content/10.110… #biorxiv_micrbio

Happy to share our new preprint describing prophage encoded anti-phage defense system,TERi, that targets the terminase complex of invading phages to inhibit DNA packaging. The system also encode self immunity proteins that protect the prophage. biorxiv.org/content/biorxi…

My lab’s first preprint! We used functional metagenomics to identify phage defenses in human and soil microbiomes. We scaled these selections while maintaining accuracy, enabling us to examine 9 habitats for defense elements against 7 phages. biorxiv.org/content/10.110… 1/10

🚨Paper alert 🚨 Our latest research is out in nature! We reveal a surprising new role for the proteasome in innate immunity: generating antimicrobial peptides that can directly disrupt bacterial membranes. 🦠⚡ Weizmann Institute Systems_Immunology_WIS 🔗 nature.com/articles/s4158… 🧵👇

The sequel to our DRT2 story is here, and this one is once again full of surprises! This time around, the Sternberg Lab teamed up with the Wiedenheft Lab to study how DRT9 reverse transcriptases provide antiviral immunity. Here’s what we found: biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

If you are interested in phage satellites, we hope you'll enjoy this. Fun collaboration with the Rocha, Seed, Bikard, and Chen labs! nature.com/articles/s4157…

A minimal CRISPR polymerase produces decoy cyclic nucleotides to detect phage anti-defense proteins biorxiv.org/content/10.110… #biorxiv_micrbio

Fantastic new preprint of Vaughn Cooper's lab Vaughn Cooper (see: vscooper@bsky) - filamentous phages can get cancer and it's contagious. 🔥👇🏼 biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

Structural basis for Lamassu-based antiviral immunity and its evolution from DNA repair machinery biorxiv.org/content/10.110… #biorxiv_micrbio

Excited to share our latest on the Type II Thoeris system! In collaboration with the Sorek and Kranzusch labs, we identify His-ADPR as a signaling molecule. Huge thanks to all involved—amazing teamwork! nature.com/articles/s4158…

White smoke, we have not only a new pope, but also 16 new anti-phage systems in integrons ! In collaboration with the Didier Mazel lab, we show in our new paper that cassettes of these large platforms encode known anti-phage defenses and uncovered 16 new ones. science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

Out now in Molecular Cell: Cyanobacterial Argonautes and Cas4 family nucleases cooperate to interfere with invading DNA cell.com/molecular-cell… Most long-A pAgos interfere with invading DNA solo. Why then are cyanobacterial pAgos co-encoded with a Cas4-like protein? A 🧵