Congrats, great news! Looking forward to hearing about your discoveries :)

Congrats! Looking forward to hearing about the new discoveries :)

🌱 We’re excited to launch the BBSRC-funded UK Plant Epigenetics Network (UK-PEN) with our inaugural workshop (free!):

“Plant Epigenetics: From Model to Crop Species”
📅 11–12 June 2026
📍 Uni of Dundee (hybrid)

We look forward to welcoming you!

Feel free to repost to help us reach the community

How much protein diversity can Life on Earth actually generate?

With DIAMOND DeepClust, we show how billions of proteins across the tree of life can be clustered at low-identity for downstream analytics tasks.

📚Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
💻Code: github.com/bbuchfink/di...

Research Fellow (Postdoctoral) at University of Birmingham Explore an exciting academic career as a Research Fellow (Postdoctoral). Don't miss out on other academic jobs. Click to apply and explore more opportunities.

Two post-doctoral positions open in our lab. We're looking for people with expertise in molecular microbiology and/or genome-scale tools. Initially 3 yrs, posts could be extended for upto 8 yrs. If you'd like to know more about us take a look at www.graingerlab.com

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQY475/r...

Also tagging co-author @chemsley.bsky.social whose handle I missed in original post. Apologies for that!

We find that flagellar biosynthesis has a fitness cost but FliC is among the most highly produced proteins in starvation. Even if motility is expensive for individual cells, it seems a worthwhile expense for a starving population... Lots of other interesting stuff in the data!

We found that P. aeruginosa continues to produce proteins during days of nitrogen or carbon starvation, and actively remodels its proteome if conditions change, even after days of starvation. Unsurprisingly, proteases and chaperones are important. Surprisingly, they are still making flagella!

Pseudomonas aeruginosa dynamically prioritizes motility and resource recycling during prolonged starvation | mSystems Molecular microbiology has traditionally focused on exponential growth in model organisms as the preferred context in which to study bacterial physiology, especially the regulation of new protein synt...

Now out in its final form, our investigation of how Pseudomonas aeruginosa manages resources to permit ongoing adaptations to environment during starvation:
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... Congrats to first author @findunmun1.bsky.social, and co-authors Claudia Hemsley and Elize Ambulte.

Here’s the latest preprint from my work on evolved resistance to Type VI Secretion system (T6SS) weaponry, funded by a @wellcometrust.bsky.social Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship. So happy to see this out!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Tvp complexes support formation of the VgrG-PAAR spike during Type VI secretion system assembly www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02...

Congratulations to MD-PhD student, Amanda Velez and all co-authors on our new PNAS paper describing how the innate immune protein calprotectin incapacitates autolysins, inducing tolerance to B-lactam antibiotics. A fun collaboration with Thomas Kehl-Fie. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Experimental evolution in the cystic fibrosis chemical environment reveals early TCA cycle flux as a central regulator of Mycobacterium abscessus biofilm formation Mycobacterium abscessus (MAB) is an emerging opportunistic pathogen that can cause severe, recalcitrant pulmonary infections in susceptible groups, in…

Congratulations to Sean Yu-Hao Wang, Will DePas, @catarmbruster.bsky.social and colleagues on their use of experimental evolution to identify regulators of Mycobacterium abscessus biofilm production!
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Regulatory Rewiring Drives Intraspecies Competition in Bacillus subtilis Intraspecies interactions shapes microbial community structure and evolution, yet the mechanisms determining competitive outcomes among closely related strains remain unclear. The soil bacterium Bacil...

Regulatory Rewiring Drives Intraspecies Competition in Bacillus subtilis

bioRxiv from @bacteriacities.bsky.social

#competition #rapP #comP

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Schematic overview of the process of DNA-affinity / pull down identification of unknown nucleic acid-binding proteins

Identification of Previously Unknown DNA-Binding Proteins Using DNA Affinity/Pull-Down Methods Followed by Mass Spectrometry

Jutras, Babb, Jusufovic, Krusenstjerna, Saylor, Verma, and Stevenson

Current Protocols 2025, 5:e70264
doi: 10.1002/cpz1.70264

#MicroSky

🚨Preprint alert - this is a big one! We transfer the revolutionary power of TnSeq to bacteriophages.

Our HIDEN-SEQ links the "dark matter" genes of your favorite phage to any selectable phenotype, guiding the path from fun observations to molecular mechanisms.

A thread 1/8

Congratulations Alastair and Prerna! Exciting times :)

Congratulations, Jay! Looking forward to learning about your discoveries :)

An Rhs effector uses distinct target cell functions to intoxicate bacterial and fungal competitors www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10....

Independent research fellowships leading to tenured positions at the John Innes Centre.

Repost = nice. Thank you very much!!!

Cool!

Analyses of protein expression and genetic fitness determinants reveal dynamic pathways active in starved Pseudomonas aeruginosa Heterotrophic bacteria rapidly deplete essential macronutrients during growth and must navigate subsequent periods of growth arrest imposed by starvation. Nutrient limitations can be dynamic in nature...

New preprint from the lab! @findunmun1.bsky.social @chemsley.bsky.social We looked at new protein synthesis and genetic fitness during starvation in P. aeruginosa. Resources are dynamically redistributed to support ongoing activity, even over days of total starvation: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Congrats, Lev!

They will survive much better if you let them grow into stationary phase in rich media first, and then transfer them to a minimal medium with no carbon source. Transferring to carbon starvation directly from exponential growth causes faster death. See for example PMID: 32500952 and PMID: 34058747.

yes, the MMBs studied by george schaible and roland hatzenpichler are fascinating 𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗺𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗿 bacteria 🤩

STC had mentioned them first in 2007 > schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2...
and recently in > schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2...

#MicroSky

Future Directions of the Prokaryotic Chromosome Field In September 2023, the Biology and Physics of Prokaryotic Chromosomes meeting ran at the Lorentz Center in Leiden, The Netherlands. As part of the workshop, those in attendance developed a series of ....

In @molecularmicro.bsky.social: two special issues on Prokaryotic Chromosome Organization. Many excellent contributions, including a vision article: 'Future directions of the Prokaryotic Chromosome Field', outcome of BioPhyChrom 2023 @biophychrom.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Polyphosphate: The “Dark Matter” of Bacterial Chromatin Structure Polyphosphate condensates and their contributions to nucleoid structure. Polyphosphate condensates form in the ribosome-depleted nucleoid region of bacterial cells, particularly under stress (in this...

Polyphosphate: The “Dark Matter” of Bacterial Chromatin Structure onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #jcampubs

The taxonomy & lifestyle of Salmonella Typhimurium

www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

Congrats to Findlay and many thanks to examiners Dan Neill and Martin Welch for their work on a successful viva today! Findlay has worked so hard and accomplished so much while blazing the trail as the first PhD student in the lab :)