We just received funding for a 2yr postdoc position on cryoEM of fungal gpcrs. Official call will open soon.

Contact me if you‘re interested!

Thanks Julia!

Mann in einem weißen Kittel vor einem Whiteboard

Der Biologe Dr. Florian Altegoer vom Institut für Mikrobiologie der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf (HHU) erhält einen mit 210.000 Euro dotierten „Exploration Grant“ der Boehringer Ingelheim Stiftung (BIS).

Host-adapted enzymatic deconstruction of acetylated xylan limits immune activation and facilitates mutualistic colonization of monocot roots This study identifies a monocot-specific enzymatic module in the beneficial root endophyte Serendipita indica, showing how ancestral saprotrophic enzymes have been repurposed into an immune-compatible...

Very proud to share our new paper led by Mathias Brands from my team at @UniCologne! With Markus Pauly team @HHU. Host-adapted enzymatic deconstruction of acetylated xylan limits immune activation and facilitates mutualistic colonization of monocot roots: Molecular Plant www.cell.com/molecular-pl...

Nutzpflanzenforscherin aus dem „Klaus Tschira Boost-Fund“ gefördert Die Pflanzenforscherin Dr. Eliza Loo, Arbeitsgruppenleiterin am Institut für Molekulare Physiologie an der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf (HHU), wird für die kommenden zwei Jahre für ein Projek...

Huge congrats to Dr. Eliza Loo! The associated MibiNet researcher has secured a "Klaus Tschira Boost Fund" grant to explore targeted programming of plant microbiomes. Fantastic news for @hhu.de and the MibiNet team!
#MibiNet #HHU
@elizaloopi.bsky.social
www.hhu.de/en/detail-re...

1/ Excited to share our preprint! 🥳

Degradation of aromatic compounds, including BTEX pollutants, requires highly endergonic aromatic ring reduction. Using #cryoEM and in situ #cryoET, we show how BCRII couples electron bifurcation modules in one giant redox machine

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

Fellows4FungiMSCA Postdoctoral Network - Leibniz-HKI

📣 Check out this excellent #Postdoc opportunity @leibniz-hki.de which is part of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions #MSCA #COFUND. Consider applying to join my lab if you’re interested in opportunistic infections caused by #Fusarium (research area 5). Call ends 26 May 2026

www.fellows4fungi.eu

Phage receptor prediction from genome sequencing alone. Bacterial receptor (blue) interacting with phage proteins (purple) is shown here

📣Huge preprint 🔔
Today we share something our group has been working toward for a long time, led by @lucasmoriniere.bsky.social We asked can we predict which receptor a phage targets from its genome sequence alone? For most phages, we couldn’t. So Lucas set out to do something I had only dreamed of.

I will probably be hiring either a PhD or a Postdoc in the near future. If you are interested in deep biochemical history or molecular mechanisms of evolution please get in touch.

A great team effort w/ @freecyano.bsky.social on c-di-NMP signaling via ComFB in #cyanobacteria

ComFB sequesters TFs (CRP1/2) & keeps them inactive. High #c-di-GMP breaks the complexes & TFs become free to act on their targets @hhu.de @biologyunifreiburg.bsky.social

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

Dissecting the RNA-binding capacity of the multi-RRM protein Rrm4 essential for endosomal mRNA transport Abstract. RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) utilize multiple RNA-binding domains (RBDs) to engage with extensive messenger RNA (mRNA) networks. Understanding the

Breakthrough article 😊
Joint effort of teams Zarnack & König & Feldbrügge clarifies how multiple RNA-binding domains cooperate to identify functional important binding sites in vivo
doi.org/10.1093/nar/...
@zarnack-group.bsky.social
@könig-lab.bsky.social
@mibinet.bsky.social
#EMBOrnaLocalization

AlphaFold as a prior: experimental structure determination conditioned on a pretrained neural network Nature Methods - ROCKET improves experimental structure elucidation by integrating implicit structural knowledge from OpenFold, a trainable reimplementation of AlphaFold2, with X-ray...

ROCKET 🚀 inference-time optimization of AlphaFold to fit structural data is published! rdcu.be/fa9YH
Since our preprint, we’ve pushed it to regimes where other methods break: low resolution, weak signal, real experimental edge cases. Here’s what we learned: 1/15

Transposable elements hitchhike on Starships across fungal genomes - Nature Communications Large mobile genetic elements known as Starships act as vehicles for transferring transposable elements (TEs) between fungi. Here, Griem-Krey et al. show that these ‘hitchhiking’ TEs can drive rapid e...

Now out!
We show that TEs can be horizontally transferred between fungal species via Starships. Once transferred, these TEs can become active, changing the genome organization and affecting the lifestyle of the recipient fungus.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@oggenfussursula.bsky.social #TEsky

Fig. 1 CLAVATA3/EMBRYO SURROUNDING REGION (CLE) in biotic plant interactions.

#TansleyInsight: CLE peptides in plant-biotic interactions

Nicolas Frei dit Frey & Thomas Spallek
👇

📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#LatestIssue #PlantScience

Some reflections on #Fungal26 This was a great meeting as always but set against some turbulent times of course, which meant many regular attendees were not present. This thread is mainly for them. However, the proportion of first-time attendees was very high and very international. #Fungal26 1/15

Starships in fungi are so intriguing & have clearly had enormous (& diverse) impacts on genome evolution. @mycomile.bsky.social So many questions- the catalytic mechanism of YR Captains, target-site selection, how they move between fungi? (anastomosis/ role for parasexuality?) Amazing #Fungal26

Orlando Arguello-Miranda is using amazing deep learning to read 🎞️ BETWEEN 🎞️ THE FRAMES 🎞️ of microscopy 🔬 videos

#fungal26
#FungAI

Scale alone doesn’t determine success. Although most predictions come from eukaryotic proteomes, the highest fraction of high-confidence complexes is observed in bacteria and archaea. 2/

FEBS Press The acquisition of bacterial endosymbionts by ancient host cells followed by massive adaptation of the partners gave rise to mitochondria and plastids. Today, various systems with younger and less in...

The final talk of the conference 😢 @evanowack.bsky.social on the transformation of endosymbiont into an organelle, touching on protein import systems and the host complementation of proteins lost by the symbiont. Read a recent review here febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
#EESSymbiosis

Isheng Jason Tsai @ishengtsai.bsky.social explores the diversity of fungi in carnivorous plants 🥩🏵️ (who btw don't like cheese 🧀)

Are the fungi and carnivorous plants working together?

#fungal26

🥳 Happy that our manuscript, first published on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social has been accepted for publication in "Microbiome" and will be part of a collection on "Harnessing plant microbiomes to improve performance and mechanistic understanding" link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät Heute ernannte Rektorin Prof. Dr. Anja Steinbeck den Biotechnologen Dr. Johannes Rebelein zum W3-Professor für Nachhaltige Biotechnologie. Rebelein wird damit auch Direktor des Instituts für Molekular...

Welcome to our new colleague Johannes Rebelein, head of the Institut of Sustainable Biotechnology @hhu.de and our new colleague at the Institute of Bio- and Geosciences 1 @fz-juelich.de.
Welcome to @mibinet.bsky.social!

www.chemie.hhu.de/en/latest-ne...

We Are very happy that our Paper was published. Thank to everyone involved

pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

@mibinet.bsky.social @mfeldbruegge.bsky.social @frunzkelab.bsky.social

Happy to announce that our review article on vesicle-coupled mRNA trafficking is now availalbe

@mibinet.bsky.social

#EMBOrnaLocalization

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Black field with a macro image of a bright orange lichen Xanthoria in one of the corner. Little diagrams showing a structure of a lichen thallus with different layers in grey and green, a phylogenetic tree, and an alphafold generated structure of a protein. White text says "PhD position in Stockholm University / SciLifeLab. Lichen Biology, Symbiosis, Microbial Ecology & Evolution,Meta-omics Fully funded for 4 years. Start Apr-Sep 2026. Deadline for application: Feb 1st."

⚡️Fully funded #PhD position in my lab at Stockholm University / SciLifeLab! If you’re interested in #lichens, #symbiosis, fungal biology, or meta-omics, please apply. Deadline Feb 1. Read more here: su.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

One week left to apply for the PhD position in my group in Stockholm!

PhD advertisement - Pausch lab | Patrick Pausch | 15 comments Please share! 📤 The Pausch lab at Vilniaus universitetas / Vilnius University is looking to recruit PhD students to work on: ⚔️ 🛡️: Bacterial Immune Systems (CRISPR, retrons, & beyond) 🧬 ✂️: De...

Great opportunity to join the lab of @patrick-pausch.bsky.social !

www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

AlphaFold models of host-pathogen interactions elucidate the prevalence and structural modes of molecular mimicry Pathogens exploit host cellular machinery through protein-protein interactions (PPIs), often using molecular mimicry to hijack host cellular processes. While there have been thousands of host-pathogen...

New lab preprint - Delora Baptista tested AlphaFold 2 and 3 for the prediction of structures of host-pathogen interactions and then applied these to study convergence of binding and molecular mimicry in host-pathogen vs. host-host interactions.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Ancestral sequence reconstruction reveals CTP-dependent loading of the bacterial centromere-binding protein ParB as an ancient evolutionary feature

Now published:
tinyurl.com/4ddhwbb3

Thanks to the Hochberg and Bange labs for the great collaboration!

Thrilled to share our latest work @luptoncj.bsky.social @drellisdon.bsky.social @drmlhalls.bsky.social.

Structure of the lysosomal KICSTOR-GATOR1-SAMTOR nutrient-sensing supercomplex.

🧪🔬#cryoEM
Now online @cellpress.bsky.social.

doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...