Structural formulae and plots showing the abundance in a sample of Bennu (plus some meteorites) of various types of sugars

⚒️ Article: Samples from asteroid Bennu contain bio-essential sugars that may have formed in the parent asteroid from brines

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

🚨 Postdoctoral Opportunity for Female Scientists🚨

The University of Vienna is awarding at least 20 fully funded 4 year postdoctoral positions to outstanding female scientists

Interested? Get in touch via direct message
careers.univie.ac.at/en/postdoc/e...

#MicroSky 🧪

#PostDoc @univie.ac.at

Interesting in New Phytologist:
The origin and evolution of root mucilage
doi.org/10.1111/nph....
Lead by Meisam Nazari

#roots #rhizosphere #mucilage #mycorrhiza #Soil

Advances in Fragmentation Techniques for Glycomics and Glycoproteomics ABSTRACT Glycosylation, the enzymatic addition of carbohydrate moieties to proteins, is essential for immune recognition, protein folding, and disease progression. The structural complexity of glycans and the heterogeneity of glycosylation sites present significant challenges towards accurate identification and quantification, necessitating advanced methodologies for comprehensive characterization. Tandem MS (MS/MS) has emerged as the primary analytical platform for glycomics and glycoproteomics. This review highlights the recent developments in fragmentation techniques, ranging from well-established techniques such as CID/HCD and ETD, to newer and more advanced techniques such as electron-based methods (EThcD), photodissociation strategies (UVPD, IRMPD), and hybrid approaches (sceHCD, EThcD-sceHCD, HCD-pd-ETD), each providing distinct advantages towards glycan structure elucidation and glycosite mapping. This review also discusses emerging computational strategies, especially deep learning for automated interpretation of complex glycomics and glycoproteomics data.

(MS Reviews) Advances in Fragmentation Techniques for Glycomics and Glycoproteomics: ABSTRACT




Glycosylation, the enzymatic addition of carbohydrate moieties to proteins, is essential for immune recognition, protein folding, and disease progression. The structural… #MassSpectromRev #MassSpecRSS

This week as part of the @pilzfestspiele.at - our group showed mycorrhizal fungal colonized roots, our culture collection, posters of results, and we had a massive turnout! People are becoming increasingly interested in fungi @cemess.bsky.social @ter-cemess.bsky.social

www.fungalecologylab.com

New @pnas.org in @Biofunlab !!

Soil microbial life history strategies covary with ecosystem multifunctionality across aridity gradients

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

Led by @BioFunLab CSC student Tao Zhou

@irnase.bsky.social @csic.es @csicandalextrem.bsky.social

Jane Goodall’s legacy: three ways she changed science Nature - The primatologist challenged what it meant to be a scientist.

Jane Goodall, known for her pioneering work with chimpanzees, has passed away aged 91

go.nature.com/46QHIZk

On the growth and form of bacterial colonies - Nature Reviews Physics Most bacteria exist in dense aggregates, yet this lifestyle is relatively poorly understood compared with planktonic cultures. This Review explores biophysical models of aggregate development, and how...

www.nature.com/articles/s42...

CLAW-MRM: Comprehensive Lipidomics Automation Workflow for Multiple Reaction Monitoring Using Large Language Models Lipidomic profiling generates vast datasets, making manual annotation and trend interpretation complex and time-intensive. The structural and chemical diversity of the lipidome further complicates the analysis. While existing tools support targeted lipid identification, they often lack automated workflows and seamless integration with statistical and bioinformatics tools. Here, we introduce the comprehensive lipidomics automated workflow for multiple reaction monitoring (CLAW-MRM), a platform designed to automate lipid annotation, statistical analysis, and data parsing using custom multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) precursor product ion transitions. CLAW-MRM employs trimmed mean of m-value (TMM) normalization to account for lipid load differences, enabling robust cross-sample comparisons. To evaluate CLAW-MRM’s performance, we analyzed lipid profiles in liver tissues of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) mice and age-matched wild-type controls under conditions of constant and variable tissue mass, assessing the impact of normalization strategies on TMM-normalized lipidomic outcomes. Additionally, we isolated and profiled lipid droplets from individual brain regions of 18- to 24-month-old AD male mice and controls, leveraging nearly 1,500 MRM transitions across 11 lipid classes. Enhancing biological relevance, CLAW-MRM integrates LIGER (lipidome gene enrichment reactions), linking lipid expression with gene activation and suppression patterns. Through CLAW-MRM-based LIGER, we identified metabolic pathways enriched in differentially expressed lipids, offering insights into altered lipid metabolism in AD. To improve usability, CLAW-MRM incorporates a natural language interface powered by large language models, enabling artificial intelligence (AI)-driven user interaction for statistical and bioinformatics analyses. By automating lipid structural identification and integrating AI-assisted bioinformatics, CLAW-MRM provides an end-to-end workflow from data acquisition to interpretation, streamlining high-throughput lipidomics.

CLAW-MRM: Comprehensive Lipidomics Automation Workflow for Multiple Reaction Monitoring Using Large Language Models #AC pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Microbial iron oxide respiration coupled to sulfide oxidation - Nature Genomic and biochemical analyses of prokaryotic sulfur metabolism identify diverse microorganisms with the capacity to oxidize sulfide using iron(iii).

📢 New paper in @nature.com

Microbes rock 🎸🤘 with sulfide and iron minerals

I am very excited to share our recent study, which describes a previously unknown microbial energy metabolism ⚡⚡⚡🦠🧫⚡⚡⚡

🆕 Microbial iron oxide respiration coupled to sulfide oxidation - MISO

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

Graphical illustration of how EPS is enzymatically degraded in multiple steps into smaller fragments, fueling the growth of non-degrading species: EPS degraders break down EPS into larger oligomers for oligomer consumers; further degradation into monomers and small oligomers supports non-degrading consumers.

What is the role of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) in carbon exchange among microbial species? @sammy-pontrelli.bsky.social &co show that #EPS, formed via #chitin degradation, drives #MicrobialDiversity by acting as a sequentially degraded #CarbonSource @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/3J9kbuu

Growth of soil ammonia-oxidizing archaea on air-exposed solid surface Abstract. Soil microorganisms often thrive as microcolonies or biofilms within pores of soil aggregates exposed to the soil atmosphere. However, previous s

Growth of soil ammonia-oxidizing archaea on air-exposed solid surface
#microbiology #soil #archaea #ammonia
@isme-microbes.bsky.social
academic.oup.com/ismecommun/a...

Wow!!! Congratulations, Kyle🎉🥳!!!

Functional regimes define soil microbiome response to environmental change - Nature Experimental perturbation of soil pH leads to a generalizable model of the soil microcosm comprising three functional regimes with distinct mechanisms linking environmental change to metabolite dynamics.

Nature research paper: Functional regimes define soil microbiome response to environmental change

go.nature.com/3IqdJzd

Mechanism of lateral cell-wall expansion at a constant diameter in Bacillus subtilis - Nature Communications In Escherichia coli, lateral cell-wall expansion during growth occurs by crosslinking of new glycan chains to the existing peptidoglycan network. Here, Liang et al. show a different mechanism in the G...

Mechanism of lateral cell-wall expansion at a constant diameter in Bacillus subtilis

-in @natcomms.nature.com

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

How may theoretical ecology & evolutionary theory push microbiology forward?
At Environmental Microbiology, I am commissioning a series of Perspectives exploring that question. Excited to share them in the 🧵 below
The series is open, so do get in touch if you'd like to propose a new contribution!

New paper in @nature.com! With @kiseokmicro.bsky.social , Siqi Liu, Kyle Crocker, Jojo Wang, Mikhail Tikhonov & Madhav Mani — a massive dataset and simple model reveal a few conserved regimes that capture how soil microbiome metabolism responds to perturbations. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We are hiring: Full Professor of Environmental Biogeochemistry of Metals Human activities are driving rapid environmental change on a global scale, with pollutants playing a critical role in pushing planetary systems beyond safe limits. These changes have profound conseque...

CeMESS is hiring!

Join us at the Division of Environmental Geosciences (@edge-vienna.bsky.social) as Full Professor of ENVIRONMENTAL BIOGEOCHEMISTRY OF METALS. Collaborate across a leading institution in microbiome science and environmental research.

🔗 Learn more and apply: tinyurl.com/47bev45k

We are hiring: Full Professor of Soil Ecosystems and Global Change Soil ecosystems form the foundation of planetary health and play a critical role in climate feedback mechanisms. However, they are also vulnerable to the impacts of global change.

CeMESS is hiring!

Join us at the Division of Terrestrial Ecosystem Research (@ter-cemess.bsky.social) as Full Professor of SOIL ECOSYSTEMS AND GLOBAL CHANGE. Collaborate across a leading institution in microbiome science and environmental research.

🔗 Learn more: cemess.univie.ac.at/news/detail-...

New in Geoderma: "Microbial biomass – not diversity – drives soil carbon and nitrogen mineralization in Spanish holm oak ecosystems" by Elisa Bruni, Jorge Curiel Yuste, Lorenzo Menichetti, Omar Flores [...] Stefano Manzoni. buff.ly/l8ZRoHi
@IPSL_outreach

Culturing the uncultured anaerobes from the perspective of microbial growth curves Anaerobic microorganisms inhabit diverse anoxic environments and play a fundamental role in global biogeochemical cycles. Expanding our knowledge of these organisms offers the potential to transform our understanding of ecological and evolutionary processes and to uncover new biotechnological applications. Recent advances in DNA sequencing have revealed a striking gap between the vast microbial diversity found in anoxic environments and the small number of anaerobes – fewer than 0.1% of the estimated millions of anaerobic species in nature – that have been cultivated in the laboratory. This challenge reflects the 'great plate count anomaly', in which most microorganisms observed in nature fail to grow in laboratory conditions, and aligns with the 'scout' model, which suggests that only a few opportunistic species thrive under standard cultivation approaches. Overcoming these limitations requires a shift in cultivation strategies. Here, we review recent advances in the cultivation and isolation of novel anaerobes. Specifically, we introduce a growth-curve-guided strategy that uses real-time monitoring of microbial growth (primarily at the species level) to inform approaches that leverage relative growth advantages and improve the recovery of target microorganisms. By prioritizing growth performance over abundance and selectively removing non-target microbes, this approach offers a more predictable and adaptable framework for isolating anaerobes from complex communities.

Culturing the uncultured anaerobes from the perspective of microbial growth curves

Bacteria that possess a type VI secretion system (T6SS) inject toxins directly into neighboring cells that may be competing for local resources. Toxins break down the cell wall of susceptible cells, causing the release of nutrients that the attacking bacteria can consume for growth and proliferation. However, this can cause spatial segregation of the bacterial cell population, restricting attacks to the boundaries of predator cell groups and prey cell groups. This might limit the number of cells that can leverage the T6SS system for predation.

Bacteria leverage a secretion system to kill and scavenge nutrients from nearby competitors.

Learn more in a new #SciencePerspective: scim.ag/44y3iC6

A promiscuous Bcd amino acid dehydrogenase promotes biofilm development in Bacillus subtilis

-in NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes by David Ranava et al from Northwestern University / Mee-Ngan Yap, Arthur Prindle

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

If you're in L.A. and missed the Agar Art Exhibit last night, no worries! The art will remain at E2Art Gallery for another week! e2artgallery.com #AgarArt #ASMicrobe

Plant microbiomes feel the heat Rising temperatures change the structure and function of plant microbial communities

#NatMicroPicks

Plant microbiomes feel the heat! 🦠🌱🌡️

A perspective on how plan microbial communities are affected by the rising temperatures.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Exciting news #2! CoE Key Researcher Dagmar Woebken (@cemess.bsky.social, @univie.ac.at) receives an ERC Advanced Grant to explore how desert microbes thrive on non-rainwater (dew, water vapor).
#Microsky #ERCAdG @erc.europa.eu @fwf-at.bsky.social

Glad to share our newest publication in Nature Communications 🎉🎉🎉… summarizing about a decade of work how Bacillus subtilis adapt when challenged with Aspergillus niger
Enhanced surface colonisation and competition during bacterial adaptation to a fungus
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

It is online since a few days, so time to recap: Our first steps in a new field of bacterial polysaccharide secretion, focused on Pel system from Pseudomonas aeruginosa:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In vitro biofilm formation by a beneficial bacterium partially predicts in planta protection against rhizosphere pathogens Abstract. Plant roots form associations with beneficial and pathogenic soil microorganisms. Although members of the rhizosphere microbiome can protect agai

In vitro biofilm formation by a beneficial bacterium partially predicts in planta protection against rhizosphere pathogens

#ISMEJournal from @carahaney.bsky.social
with @geiselbiofilm.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

Aspergillus Biofilms The formation of a biofilm assists microbes in survival in their environments, defends against stresses, and may enable the extension of its range. In this chapter, we review various aspects of the bi...

Aspergillus Biofilms

-in Springer Series on Biofilms (Book)

link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...