New preprint alert!!! 🚀🤓 We are very happy to finally share this with the world — the result of seven years of work and a new tool to study integrons and discover new functions encoded in these bacterial platforms.

If you want to know more, here is a thread 🧵
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Plasmids promote antimicrobial resistance through insertion sequence-mediated gene inactivation - Nature Microbiology Inactivation of chromosomal genes through plasmid-encoded IS elements is an extended mechanism of antimicrobial resistance evolution in bacteria.

Final version of our last paper is out!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New preprint out on bioRxiv!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Can conjugative plasmids be used to control plasmid and pathogen spread?

Follow me down the rabbit hole that led to this story 🧵

New preprint on the limits of detecting higher-order interactions in microbial communities.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
We find that the dominance of additive and pairwise interactions on community function may not reflect biological simplicity, but fundamental limits of statistical detection.

Great work led by MBAlab @jaescudero.bsky.social with the invaluable collaboration of @sanmillan.bsky.social @baerboletta.bsky.social @penamiller.bsky.social and @ayari.bsky.social

Excited to share our latest work! 📝

We measured the fitness effect of 136 AMR genes and found that many are neutral or even beneficial without selection. 🤯🧬

Oxygen availability can flip their fitness and our stochastic model indicates that oxygen fluctuations help maintain them.

Learn more 👇🏼

Here we go again!!! 🤟🏻🧑🏼‍🔬

Plasmid mutation rates scale with copy number | PNAS Plasmids are extrachromosomal DNA molecules that spread by horizontal transfer and shape bacterial evolution. Plasmids are typically present at mul...

New paper out in PNAS!!! 🎉

Do more plasmid copies mean faster evolution?

🧵 Dive into the story

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

Epromoters bind key stress-related transcription factors to regulate clusters of stress response genes - The EMBO Journal Cellular and environmental stress triggers the rapid and global reprogramming of gene transcription by coordinated recruitment of a limited number of key inducible transcription factors to cis-regulat...

Epromoters bind key stress-related transcription factors to regulate clusters of stress response genes
Salvatore @spicuglia.bsky.social and coworkers
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Spx inhibits expression of the SwrA•DegU master flagellar activator in Bacillus subtilis | Journal of Bacteriology Bacterial flagella are elaborate machines that are inserted through the bacterial cell envelope. The regulation of flagellar gene expression is organized in hierarchical tiers that largely correlate w...

Spx inhibits expression of the SwrA•DegU master flagellar activator in Bacillus subtilis

-in JBacteriol

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Antimicrobial resistance: a silent pandemic SPONSOR FEATURES

This week is World #AntimicrobialResistance Awareness week

This article collection spans the breadth of #AMR across pathogens (bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites), covers epidemiological monitoring, diagnostics, treatment, etc

Non-conjugative plasmids limit their mobility to persist in nature Sabnis et al. explain why non-conjugative plasmids move at a low rate in nature. While increased mobility can easily evolve by incorporating phage DNA into plasmids, this is disadvantageous because it...

Do plasmids really move around that much? Well, maybe not always

Thrilled to have contributed to this story with two of my favourite microbiologists: @jrpenades.bsky.social & @sanmillan.bsky.social

This great work was led by Akshay Sabnis & @wfigueroac3.bsky.social

www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Emergence of antiphage functions from random sequence libraries reveals mechanisms of gene birth | PNAS De novo gene birth—the emergence of genes from nongenic sequences—drives biological innovation, yet its adaptive potential remains poorly understoo...

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

#phagesky #phage defence #synbio #microsky

Phages communicate across species to shape microbial ecosystems Arbitrium is a communication system that helps bacteriophages decide between lysis and lysogeny via secreted peptides. In arbitrium, the AimP peptide binds its cognate AimR receptor to repress aimX ex...

Our latest work reveals that arbitrium phages cross-communicate across species! These tiny viruses “listen” to signals from others, coordinating lysis-lysogeny decisions across species.
Original idea from @albertomarina.bsky.social and, as usual, he was right.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Trade-offs between phage resistance and conjugative ability shape the ecological and evolutionary response of a multidrug resistance plasmid to plasmid-dependent phage Phage therapy is a promising alternative to antibiotics to treat multidrug resistant infections. Plasmid dependent phages (PDPs) are particularly attractive as therapeutics because they can both kill ...

New pre-print www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Plasmid-dependent phage (PDPs) are ubiquitous, but the selective pressures that they impose on plasmids are not well understood. Project led by Daniel Cazares in collaboration with @brockhurstlab.bsky.social!
#phagesky#microsky

Pre- and postantibiotic epoch: The historical spread of antimicrobial resistance Plasmids are now the primary vectors of antimicrobial resistance, but our understanding of how human industrialisation of antibiotics influenced their evolution is limited by a paucity of data predati...

Imagine we could travel back in time ⏪⌛️to explore the world of bacterial pathogens before humans discovered and industrialised antibiotics

We just did that to study the history of #AMR spread @science.org
doi.org/10.1126/scie...

If you like time travel & biology, this 🧵is for you👇

Creative experiences and brain clocks - Nature Communications Creative experiences such as dance, music, drawing, and strategy video games might preserve brain health. The authors show that regular practice or short training in these activities is linked to brains that look younger and work more efficiently.

Creativity keeps your brain young 🎸

Phages with a broad host range are common across ecosystems - Nature Microbiology Proximity-ligation-based sequencing from 111 samples and 5 environments reveals that a substantial proportion of phages infect multiple species.

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

#phagesky #phage

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...

I am so proud to be part of this work, that we initiated Fernando de la Cruz and I, when he was on sabbatical in my lab in 2009... it took so much time for this achievement, 1000 thanks to Raúl Fernández-López! this brought me back to my PhD on cyanobacteria genetics. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Hydrogen sulfide production distinguishes Salmonella from close relatives, but its biological significance remains obscure. This study uncovers the secret: Salmonella uses hydrogen sulfide production as a weapon to outcompete E. coli and gain a foothold in the gut.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

El próximo 5 de septiembre en nuestro #47congresosebbm tendrá lugar la entrega del Premio Fundación Lilly a la Mejor Tesis Doctoral en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular a Alberto Hipólito Carrillo por el trabajo de su tesis.

https://f.mtr.cool/rnstpoiucs

New paper out!

Dissecting pOXA-48 fitness effects in clinical Enterobacterales using plasmid-wide CRISPRi screens Nature Communications - This study investigates the effects of the carbapenem resistance plasmid pOXA-48 in clinical enterobacteria. Using CRISPRi screens, the authors revealed that the...

This work is finally published! 🥳🧬
Plasmids are associated with very variable fitness costs in their different bacterial hosts. But, what is the contribution of each of the plasmid-genes in these host-specific effects? Study led by
@jorgesastred.bsky.social, @sanmillan.bsky.social and myself! 1/14

Our new manuscript is out! A bit of everything cool:

Plasmids ✅
Insertion Sequences ✅
AMR Evolution ✅
Microbial Communities ✅
Databases analyses ✅
Mathematical modeling ✅

See the scientific thread below of Jorge Sastre, who has brilliantly led this work with @palomarodera.bsky.social

Plasmids promote antimicrobial resistance through Insertion Sequence-mediated gene inactivation Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) is a major threat to public health. Plasmids are mobile genetic elements that can rapidly spread across bacterial populations, promoting the dissemination of AMR genes i...

New paper out! 🔈🔈📣📣

Plasmids promote antimicrobial resistance through Insertion Sequence-mediated gene inactivation.

Combining experimental and computational approaches, we unveil how two of the most prevalent bacterial MGE accelerate the evolution of AMR. 🧵👇🏻

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

1/16 New pre-print from the Sternberg Lab!
We uncover how temperate phages can use RNA-guided transcription factors to remodel the flagellar composition of their bacterial host and enhance their fitness.
Find the preprint and full story here: tinyurl.com/mshwjd77

Do plasmids evolve faster 🐇, slower 🐢, or just like chromosomes 🧬?

In our new paper, we tackled this question using theory, simulations, bioinformatics, and experiments!

👇 Check out all the details in Paula’s thread!

Hint: 🐇 (most of the time)

graphical abstract of the article the extended mobility of plasmids

Here's our new broad review on the extended mobility of plasmids, about all mechanisms driving and limiting their transfer. From conjugation to conduction, phage-plasmids to hitchers, molecular to evolutionary dynamics, ecology to biotech. The state of affairs. 1/9 academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Experimental evolution in an era of molecular manipulation - Nature Reviews Genetics In this Review, Ascensao and Desai discuss how methodological advances in genotype and phenotype manipulation are transforming experimental evolution approaches and providing new insights into the und...

Experimental evolution in an era of molecular manipulation
#ExperimentalEvolution #evolution #evoSky

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

Great work from great people! Congrats @cserna.bsky.social 🤟🏻