Dissecting host stress responses for predictable heterologous gene expression in E. coli Abstract. Predictable expression of heterologous genes remains a key challenge in biotechnology, largely due to cellular stresses imposed on the production

doi.org/10.1093/nar/...

tRNA-Mediated Plasmid Stabilization for Antibiotic-Free Applications in Escherichia coli Plasmids are essential tools in molecular biology and biotechnology. In research laboratories, it is common to use antibiotic selection markers to ensure that plasmids are stably maintained in a cellu...

A little Christmas gift for the molecular biology nerds! I love the simplicity of this idea: very useful (and small) plasmid selection system that alleviates the need for antibiotics in molbio and bioprocesses. Elegant work by my former PhD student, lab, and colleagues: doi.org/10.1021/acss...

A long standing goal in synthetic biology is ‘PURE makes PURE’ - effectively the start of self-replicating biology in a tube from just adding biochemicals and DNA instructions. This looks like a promising breakthrough from the Maerkl lab. 👀

Simple and robust in vivo engineering of plasmid DNA at any copy number in Escherichia coli A robust in vivo method for engineering plasmid DNA in E. coli using a triple-selection system that works at any copy number, enabling fast, scalable construction of standardized plasmids for synthetic...

🚀 #SEVA proves its potential once again!

@norholm.bsky.social's lab created a new plasmid recombination system in E. coli using SEVAplasmids. Compatible with any copy number, they expand the standardised toolbox for #SynBio 👉 doi.org/10.1038/s420...

We just opened the Bluesky account of the International Microbiology Literacy Initiative (IMiLI) headed by Ken Timmis. Follow us to know more about the initiative or even better become one of our volunteers to bring Microbiology to kids all ages around the world 🦠 🏫

Villum Foundation wishes to encourage the exchange of scientific ideas between the US and Denmark. Villum Sabbatical supports research stays of up to one year at a Danish university. Researchers at the associate professor or professor level based at a US university may receive up to 1 MDKK to cover their salary (in part or in full), salary of accompanying group members (postdocs and PhD students), travel and research costs associated with the stay. Applications are only accepted from the head of the department at the Danish host institution. If a visiting researcher subsequently decides to relocate to Denmark, they are encouraged to apply for one of Villum Foundations’s investigator grants (Young Investigator, Ascending Investigator, Investigator)

Villum Sabbatical grant:

For US-based researchers wishing to visit a Danish university for up to 12 months

Deadline Aug. 15th 2025

villumfonden.dk/en/group/cha...

Scientists are Learning to Rewrite the Code of Life In a giant feat of genetic engineering, scientists have created bacteria that make proteins in a radically different way than all natural species do.

Meet Syn57, a living cell that only needs 57 codons, not the standard 64. Here's my story on how synthetic biology is tackling the mystery of our bloated genetic code. Gift link: nyti.ms/3Hf4f9v

Iterative in vivo cut‘n’paste of chromosomal loci in Escherichia coli K-12 using synthetic DNA doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Simple and robust in vivo engineering of plasmid DNA at any copy number in Escherichia coli Communications Biology - A robust in vivo method for engineering plasmid DNA in E. coli using a triple-selection system that works at any copy number, enabling fast, scalable construction of...

Maybe it is time to replace cloning with recombineering of plasmid DNA? rdcu.be/erl5C

Examples of the pre-survey outputs.

Introducing SAVEMONEY, AKA ‘Simple Algorithm for Very Efficient Multiplexing of Oxford Nanopore Experiments for You’

A new tool offering a faster, cheaper computational approach to democratise whole-plasmid sequencing.
buff.ly/ov7YumB

Hijacking a bacterial membrane transporter for efficient genetic code expansion The site-specific encoding of non-canonical amino acids (ncAAs) provides a powerful tool for expanding the functional repertoire of proteins. Its widespread use for basic research and biotechnological...

Cool work from @klanglab.bsky.social group on identifying and engineering a novel bacterial transporter to import challenging noncanonical amino acids in E. coli, enabling improved incorporation efficiency proteinsproteinswww.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03....

Ah OK thought you were using the tetA sacB cassette.

Or just select against teta - no need for sacB pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

40 years ago all of Genbank was published in print form by NAR. The same format today would require over 4 light seconds of shelf space. To a year of progress in 2025.

Restructuring a Complex Genetic Function on Episomal Vectors in Escherichia coli Genetic functions have evolved over long timescales and can be encoded by multiple genes dispersed in different locations in genomes, and although contemporary molecular biology enables control over single genes, more complex genetic functions remain challenging. Here, we study the restructuring and mobilization of a complex genetic function encoded by 10 genes, originally expressed from four operons and two loci on the Escherichia coli genome. We observe subtle phenotypic differences and reduced fitness when expressed from episomal DNA and demonstrate that mutations in the transcriptional machinery are necessary for successful implementation in different bacteria. The work provides new approaches for advanced genome editing and constitutes a first step toward modularization and genome-level engineering of complex genetic functions.

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

Our new efficient multi-purpose DNA polymerase - freely available via Addgene bmcbiotechnol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Obviously smørrebrød with beer and snaps - husmannsvinstue.dk

Flyer for a meeting on Biomolecular Condensates in Copenhagen, May 13-15, 2025

Picture from the Carlsberg Academy; taken from https://www.carlsbergfondet.dk/en/About-the-Foundation/The-Carlsberg-Foundations-buildings/The-Carlsberg-Academy

Picture from the Carlsberg Academy; taken from https://www.carlsbergfondet.dk/en/About-the-Foundation/The-Carlsberg-Foundations-buildings/The-Carlsberg-Academy

SAVE THE DATES!

We (@proteinmagnus.bsky.social, Alex Buell & I) have received funding from the Novo Nordisk Foundation to host a meeting on biomolecular condensates in Copenhagen in May 2025. Meeting will take place at the historical Carlsberg Academy. Great list of speakers (to be revealed later)

A little something for the E. coli aficionados on this platform: Mutations upstream from sdaC and malT in Escherichia coli uncover a complex interplay between the cAMP receptor protein and different sigma factors - journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

β-lactamase expression induces collateral sensitivity in Escherichia coli bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution

🚨 Preprint alert 🚨

β-lactamase production in enterobacteria induces collateral sensitivity to other antibiotics! 

We believe that these findings expose the Achilles’ heel of β-lactamase producing bacteria!

With @sanmillan.bsky.social and many others (not on bsky). 

Check it out! 👇

#MicroSky

E. coli genetics news from the lab: Mutations upstream from sdaC and malT in Escherichia coli uncover a complex interplay between the cAMP receptor protein and different sigma factors www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Unusual repetitive DNA sequence in the E. coli genome --> CRISPR ---> genome editing

Ψ Pseudouridine ---> mRNA immunogenicity and potency ---> mRNA COVID vaccine

#basicresearch

Dear funders, dear governments

please increase the basic research budget !

Immigrant
Woman
Non-tenured
Unfunded
Perseverance
Basic research
Unpredictable application

and now #NobelPrize

What a day to celebrate! 😍

With USER 7-12 bp but some additional cost to U in primer and enzyme. But still cheap and much more efficient. Obviously I am biased here… pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

How much overlap and what strain are you using?

On potential overlooked factor is that with these methods the fragments already stick and enter the cell together - this was shown with exonuclease treatment and recET in vivo cloning pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29240926/

We have tried this several times with different strains, plasmids and overlaps - in our hands facilitating the assembly with eg. Gibson or USER is several orders of magnitude more efficient