Thanks to @mibinet.bsky.social for hosting this edition of INSPIRE with Prof. Annegret Wilde @freecyano.bsky.social from @uni-freiburg.de! At INSPIRE, a collab between CEPLAS, MibiNet and @trr341.bsky.social we invite women scientists to share their research and personal career journey. Great talk!

This one is for local #bioeconomy #novelfood #spirulina enthusiasts in Jena:
Come join us for the talk
“From Bench to Bowl: Navigating the Regulatory Maze for Cyanobacterial Food Products”
by Gunnar Muhlstädt (Puevit, Algenwerk Dresden)
📅 28 April 2026
🕓 4:00 pm (c.t.)
📍 HS Planetarium 1, Jena

Fluorescent Anabaena. Fluorescently labelled CorM filaments inside Anabaena. These represent a newly discovered cytoskeleton in multicellular cyanobacteria. © Loose group

Photosynthetic bacteria helped shape Planet Earth. Among them cyanobacteria—microbes that produced the oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere & made complex life possible. They have captivated scientists for decades by offering insights into how life evolved from single cells into multicellular organisms.

Overview of key research directions using Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 as a model cyanobacterium. Summary of the main structural, physiological, genetic, and behavioral characteristics that have established Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 as a leading model organism for cyanobacterial research. Core cellular functions include oxygenic photosynthesis, carbon, and nitrogen metabolism. Emerging research directions focus on primary metabolism and regulatory and adaptive processes, such as stress responses, circadian clock, behavior, and biotechnological applications.

Cyanobacteria are an ancient clade of phototrophic prokaryotes. But out of all the cyanobacteria available, why did Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 become the default laboratory model? This #JBacteriology review offers insights: asm.social/2TD

Three New Synthetic Algal Culture Media to Grow Them All † Three new synthetic algal culture media are described that have been used to cultivate ~12,000 diverse strains of (micro)algae, one culture medium for marine and brackish-water algae (ASP-MEL (Artific...

In need of algal culture media to grow them all?

Find them here:

www.sciepublish.com/article/pii/...

Our new preprint on detailing the molecular mechanisms of how the carbonic anhydrase activates it's activity upon encapsulation into alpha-carboxysomes is now live. Congrats to Nikole and @guillawme.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy !

Single-molecule peptide sequencing through reverse translation of peptides into DNA www.nature.com/artic...

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#proteomics #prot-paper

Maybe the MAGA was “Make Algae Great Again”, as we push to the magic $2.50 a barrel for algae biodiesel 😭🧪

Millions of protein complexes added to AlphaFold Database shed light on how proteins interact Four-way collaboration brings together world-leading AI and biological expertise to make AI-predicted protein complex structures openly available to the global scientific community.

#AlphaFoldDB now has binary protein complexes!

www.ebi.ac.uk/about/news/technology-an...

#AlphaFold #AlphaFold2 #StructuralBiology

An unconventional Rubisco small subunit underpins the CO2-concentrating organelle in land plants In many algae, photosynthesis is boosted by biophysical CO2-concentrating mechanisms, which pack the CO2-fixing enzyme Rubisco into liquid-like organelles called pyrenoids. Engineering C3 crops with a...

Our work on #hornwort #pyrenoids is finally out in @science.org! 🎉 We uncovered how hornworts pack their Rubisco into pyrenoids and successfully recreated them in Arabidopsis. A key step toward engineering more efficient photosynthesis in crops @btiscience.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

David has been interested in “green” microbes since his early university years. academic.oup.com/plphys/artic...

#WeAreASPB

Characterising complex metabolic responses in an engineered, cross-feeding microbial co-culture using quantitative proteomics Microbial communities play a key role in biogeochemical transformations in a wide range of ecosystems, but they also hold significant potential to enh…

Engineering synthetic co-cultures to be "needy" leads to unexpected consequences. We barely scratch the surface here, but get some interesting insights #biotech
🧪 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Mechanism and reconstitution of circadian transcription in cyanobacteria - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology Fang et al. reveal how a bacterial circadian clock turns genes on and off at the right times of day and use the purified proteins to drive circadian gene transcription in a test tube for days.

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

Researchers led by Jun.-Prof. Dr. Julie Zedler at #UniJena have developed a sustainable alternative to synthetic food colourings: they have modified cyanobacteria so that they produce yellow natural colourings from light and carbon dioxide alone.

➡️ www.uni-jena.de/en/386595/gel…

Looking forward the travel to Jena (first time there since 20 years!) - to meet the microbiology & membrane transport folks! ❤️‍🔥

Looking forward to @kedrov-lab.bsky.social visiting us here in Jena. He will also give a talk on January 27th (see details below). Everybody is welcome to join us for some great science and a chat with Alexej!

Happy to share the most recent collaboration with @synbiojazz.bsky.social to produce plant pigments in cyanobacteria. This time our cyanos were quite talented at transforming aromatic amino acids into colorful beetroot compounds! 🫜🦠

Twitching motility suppressors reveal a role for FimX in type IV pilus extension dynamics Author summary Type IV pili enable Pseudomonas aeruginosa to attach to surfaces, move (twitch), and form biofilms. Pilus extension is powered by the motor protein PilB, which is regulated by other fac...

New paper alert! We used our fav technique, genetic suppression, to understand how FimX controls function of the T4P PilB motor ATPase in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Great collab with the Ellison lab at U Georgia who helped with some fancy microscopy to capture pilus dynamics! doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Control of flagellar gene expression by a chemotaxis receptor-like regulator in pathogenic Escherichia coli | The EMBO Journal imageimageChemotaxis receptors typically mediate biased movement of motile bacteria in environmental gradients by controlling rotation of the flagellar motor. This study identifies a chemotaxis recept...

Happy to share as my first Bluesky post: Our newest paper describing a beautiful example of surprizing evolutionary innovation: Control of flagellar gene expression by a chemotaxis receptor-like regulator in pathogenic Escherichia coli | The EMBO Journal www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Transformation of plasmid DNA into Prochlorococcus via electroporation Prochlorococcus is the most numerically abundant photosynthetic organism in the oceans and plays a role in global carbon cycling. Despite its ecological significance and the availability of over a tho...

Transformation of plasmid DNA into Prochlorococcus via electroporation www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Thank you @plantphys.bsky.social!

RAPDOR: Using Jensen-Shannon Distance for the computational analysis of complex proteomics datasets Nature Communications - RNA-binding proteins play key roles in post-transcriptional gene regulation. Here, Hemm et al. developed RAPDOR, a widely applicable tool based on Jensen-Shannon Distance...

„RAPDOR: Using Jensen-Shannon Distance for the computational analysis of complex proteomics dataset“ rdcu.be/eImcr : 11 authors from 3 labs. Many thanks to all for making this possible!

Library-free data-independent acquisition mass spectrometry enables comprehensive coverage of the cyanobacterial proteome Single-pot solid phase-enhanced sample preparation (SP3) and trifluoroacetic acid workflows open the door to high-throughput quantitative proteomics in cya

Very proud to share the latest development on our (w/ @synbiojazz.bsky.social) mission to bring fast and accessible methods to cyanobacterial proteomics.

Major highlight: 85% Synechococcus proteome coverage in a single shotgun experiment.

Out now in Plant Physiology!

doi.org/10.1093/plph...

Mutations in the circadian cycle drive adaptive plasticity in cyanobacteria | PNAS Circadian clocks allow organisms to anticipate daily fluctuations in light and temperature, but how this anticipatory role promotes adaptation to d...

So happy to see this publication finally out! Congratulations and
thank you to all the authors!

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Genomes of nitrogen-fixing eukaryotes reveal an alternate path for organellogenesis www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1... #jcampubs 🌊

Our new paper on the aroma of #Spirulina is out now in IJMS! A #sensomics approach to find out what makes it smell so unique. Congrats to Katerina Paraskevopoulou, M. Steinhaus, and V. Mall! A great collab between LSB at TUM and NCSR Demokritos. @mdpiopenaccess.bsky.social
doi.org/10.3390/ijms...

#metabolomics #CompMetabolomics #Visualization #data #organization #annotation #prioritization

Testing eukaryotic routes for heterologous production of ketocarotenoids in cyanobacteria Abstract. Pigments and dyes are widely used in multiple industries. Ketocarotenoids are a highly sought-after group of pigments with a dark-red hue and str

Things have been pretty busy in Jena. One of our recent stories to see the light of day was the production of Astaxanthin (and other ketocarotenoids) in cyanobacteria.

Great collab with @synbiojazz.bsky.social!

#teamgreen #cyanobacteria

academic.oup.com/sumbio/artic...

The cyanobacterial circadian clock - npj Biological Timing and Sleep npj Biological Timing and Sleep - The cyanobacterial circadian clock

The cyanobacterial circadian clock www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Beyond movement: the dynamic roles of Type IV pili in cyanobacterial life | Journal of Bacteriology The advent of oxygenic photosynthesis by ancient cyanobacteria approximately 2.4 billion years ago profoundly transformed Earth’s landscape. Today, cyanobacteria inhabit a vast array of aquatic habita...

Beyond movement: the dynamic roles of Type IV pili in cyanobacterial life | Journal of Bacteriology journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...