Our work on understanding how Staphylococcus aureus mode of cell division contributes to pathogenesis is now available in bioRxiv

Fantastic new work from @bactophile.bsky.social @shailab.bsky.social et al from the Shen lab - Defining the order of assembly of the Clostridioides difficile divisome complex www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #modelnotmodel

Identification of sporulation genes in Bacillus anthracis highlights similarities and significant differences with Bacillus subtilis How good is Bacillus subtilis as a model for the spore-forming pathogen Bacillus anthracis? Using high throughput genetics to identify B. anthracis sporulation genes and cytological analysis of the mu...

Fer’s tour de force in B. anthracis is out! Fer got Tn-seq running, built an ordered knockout library, defined all essential sporulation genes, and found a peptidoglycan deacetylase inhibitor critical for engulfment. Including our first one-by-all Alphafold screen! journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Molecular dissection of Class A PBP function uncovers novel features of the non-canonical Clostridioides difficile divisome complex Author summary Bacterial cell division is an ancient and essential process, but our molecular understanding of this process is primarily based on studies in a select few model systems. Recent work fou...

Excited to share my latest postdoctoral work in the Shen Lab at Tufts! In this study, we follow up on an exciting finding by former grad student @shailab.bsky.social that C diff uses its Class A PBP (PBP1) to drive cell division (unlike previously studied bacteria)! journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

Congrats Dipak 🎉 Best of luck getting your lab started!

A global view of morphogenetic peptidoglycan synthases across the domain Bacteria Abstract. Bacteria define their heritable cell shape using membrane integral glycosyltransferases (GTases) of the shape, elongation, division and sporulati

A global view of morphogenetic peptidoglycan synthases across the domain Bacteria Open Access

@femsjournals.bsky.social microLife by Francisco García-del Portillo et al

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Happy to finally show our story of the connection between nucleoid conformation, transcription & predation in our favorite predator Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus. 🧵 1/n

Translational coupling of neighboring genes in prokaryotes | Journal of Bacteriology Prokaryotic genes are arranged in operons, with functionally related genes often located adjacent to one another (1). There are several ways in which the operonic organization of genes facilitates the...

Check out our new paper: a review of translational coupling, the phenomenon where translation of one prokaryotic gene can promote translation of the gene downstream. We cover the history, and delve into the mechanism, which is still not fully understood. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

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…

Flagellar switch inverted repeats impact heterogeneity in flagellar gene expression and thus C. difficile RT027/MLST1 virulence Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile) RT027 strains cause infections that vary in severity from asymptomatic to lethal, but the molecular basis for …

Flagellar switch inverted repeats impact heterogeneity in flagellar gene expression and thus C. difficile RT027/MLST1 virulence www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I'm pleased to announce that I will be starting my lab as an Assistant Professor at UMass Chan Medical School in August! My group will study phages that infect corynebacteria and mycobacteria to understand bacterial cell envelope assembly and phage gene function. Website and more info to come soon!

Cyclic-di-AMP modulates cellular turgor in response to defects in bacterial cell wall synthesis - Nature Microbiology Brogan et al. uncover a signalling pathway in which levels of the nucleotide second messenger c-di-AMP increase in response to defects in cell wall synthesis. This regulatory pathway decreases turgor ...

Very happy to share that a large part of my thesis work is out today: B. subtilis uses the second messenger c-di-AMP to modulate its turgor pressure in response to the state of its cell envelope. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to share our latest review! Check it out to see what we know so far about how Staphylococcus aureus coordinates key processes during its cell cycle

🚨👉 Please check our recent work on bacterial cell division. In situ Cryo-ET reveals the cellular function of the penicillin binding protein 1b supported by AFM, live-cell imaging, in silico AlphaFold proteome screen and TIRFM. Hope you enjoy the read! #teamtomo #cryo-ET ❄️🔬🐎 big thanks to the team!

SAVE THE DATE ‼️ 📆 📢
BBM 2025 will be held on June 9-10th at the Harvard Science Center feat. the one and only Dr. Petra Levin as keynote! We can't wait to see you there.

Registration and scholarship applications open next week.

Angelika Gründling’s work from her sabbatical in the Bernhardt-Rudner labs is out. She came with the goal of finding the missing G+ phosphatidylglycerol phosphate phosphatase and found it with time to spare. I can also highly recommend her as a bay mate! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Congrats Dipak!

LD-transpeptidase-mediated cell envelope remodeling enables developmental transitions and survival in Coxiella burnetii and Legionella pneumophila | Journal of Bacteriology Coxiella burnetii and L. pneumophila cause Q Fever and Legionnaire’s disease in humans, respectively. There is a lack of effective treatments for fatal chronic infections caused by these pathogens, pa...

Excited to share my recent work published in #JBacteriology @asm.org ! We found that LD-transpeptidases drive phenotypic differentiation of Legionella and Coxiella into intrinsically resistant forms. Grateful to all who made this possible !
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Combinatorial phenotypic landscape enables bacterial resistance to phage infection Success of phage therapies is limited by bacterial defenses against phages. While a large variety of anti-phage defense mechanisms has been characterized, how expression of these systems is distribute...

How can single-cell transcriptomics profile phage infection in individual microbial cells? Check out our preprint with Anika Gupta, Norma Morella, Dmitry Sutormin & other authors, in collaboration with Georg Seelig (UW) and Neel Dey (Fred Hutch). www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

HARIBO bacter for happy holidays

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanks to @dipanwitab.bsky.social, Asher, @lilymcknight.bsky.social, and Pilar (a very talented undergrad) for getting this manuscript to the finish line.

Thanks to MBoC for the excellent manuscript review experience.

Now it is time for turkey, pecan pie, and more.

Hello 🦋 #protein / #microbio / #BioML community! We are excited to release Gaia🌎, a context-aware protein search tool, extending protein search and discovery capabilities beyond sequence and structure, to include *genomic context*. Search your favorite protein sequences with on gaia.tatta.bio

Can I get added? Thank you!

Hi Souvik, can I get added to the list? Thanks!

A prophage competition element protects Salmonella from lysis Sargen and Helaine find a prophage-encoded anti-phage defense element that blocks the lytic cycles of co-residing prophages. They further find that prophage competition occurs in Salmonella persisters...

New paper from Helaine lab at Harvard Medical School, check it out!

www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

go.bsky.app/L3L2iFz