Identification of hot spring Obelisk-like RNA replicons and expanded diversity of the Obelisk superfamily

#MicroSky

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TAD boundaries and gene activity are uncoupled Single-cell analysis fails to find a functional link between the organization of chromatin domain organization and gene activity.

"We find that while TAD boundaries pair more frequently than non-boundary regions, these interactions are infrequent and are uncorrelated with transcriptional activity of genes within the TAD"

elifesciences.org/articles/110...

2'3'-cGAMP-induced membrane shearing promotes broad antiphage immunity An evolutionarily conserved CBASS transmembrane effector—ancestral to the mammalian cGAS-STING pathway—is activated by 2'3'-cGAMP to assemble into membrane-spanning filaments that disrupt membranes via a newly defined mechanism of vertical lipid shearing.

Now online! 2'3'-cGAMP-induced membrane shearing promotes broad antiphage immunity

I am so excited to share our new findings with you! We provide the structural evidence for a direct protein-to-DNA information pathway, showing how a bacterial enzyme 'reads' its own structure to 'write' DNA. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The PALS Summer School in Transcriptomics, I promise, will be a unique experience
www.trippus.net/summerschool...
23-26 June 2026 in a hidden Swedish paradise 🇸🇪🫎

We have extended the deadline to May 15 or until availability

@scilifelab.se @kawresearch.bsky.social @remeseiro-lab.bsky.social

Excited to share our new findings in @science.org on how the DRT3 bacterial defense system uses a reverse transcriptase that builds DNA repeats without a nucleic acid template. Microbes never cease to amaze!

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

Congrats 🥂, Emma!

A bacterial CARD–NLR-like immune system controls the release of gene transfer agents - Nature Microbiology An immunity-like system functions as a lysis control hub to promote gene transfer agent particle release from host bacterial cells, suggesting that bacterial immune systems may be co-opted to promote ...

Delighted to share our latest work on gene transfer agents (GTAs). We found a lysis control hub which allows GTAs to escape their bacterial host cells and transfer DNA 🧬 between bacteria. Thanks to @tunglejic.bsky.social, all co-authors, and our amazing collaborators!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

You can never leave Exploring the process, illusion and discourse of change through the musings of Heraclitus and the Eagles’ Hotel California

You can never leave | Exploring the process, illusion and discourse of change through the musings of Heraclitus and the Eagles’ Hotel California | Dr Paul Kamill

Phage-assisted evolution of allosteric protein switches - Nature Communications Allostery enables proteins to respond to signals but remains difficult to engineer. Here, Southern et al. developed a phage-assisted evolution framework for allosteric protein switches yielding high-p...

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

#phage #phagesky #microsky

Chancellor’s Research Fellowships | University of Technology Sydney Ranked top 100 worldwide and #7 in Australia, UTS offers industry-led degrees in Sydney’s tech precinct with a strong focus on career-ready skills.

Any postdocs in Microscopy/Microbiology/Host-Pathogen/AMR looking to set up their own labs? Look here: www.uts.edu.au/research/exp...
Life in Sydney is pretty darn good! ☀️🏄🏻‍♂️🦘 Reach out for more info.

Hypercompetition, score compression and AI co-authorship: a perfect storm for grant success rates - EMBO Reports EMBO Reports - The use of AI in grant writing to address non-scientific selection criteria along with growing application numbers and score inflation have turned many research funding schemes...

I used the recent round of MSCA postdoc fellowship results with unprecedented cutoff scores for funding as an example, but the problem is more general and this is just a showcase. What do you think? Does it align with your experiences?

Read it here:
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

2/2

UK signs deal to rejoin EU's Erasmus student exchange program More than 100,000 students are expected to benefit in the scheme's first year alone, according to the British government, which negotiated to contribute £570 million towards the scheme's costs in 2027...

"More than 100,000 people are expected to benefit in the scheme's first year alone, according to the British government, which negotiated to contribute £570 million towards the scheme's costs in 2027."

www.lemonde.fr/en/internati...

UK and EU finalise agreement to bring UK into Erasmus+ in 2027 Thousands across the UK set to benefit from re-opening of the historic Erasmus+ programme

Delighted to see the return of Erasmus+. Can be brilliant for students who study abroad, particulary if in a very different culture or language www.gov.uk/government/n...

Histone diversity in the archaeal domain of life www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

Run an MD simulation of any protein in the AlphaFold Protein Structure Database using AF-CALVADOS

Thanks to @sobuelow.bsky.social AF-CALVADOS is now on Colab

colab.research.google.com/github/KULL-...

The chromosomal origin of replication as the basis for the spatio-temporal biology of bacteria www.frontiersin.org/journals/mic... #jcampubs

STFC chief commits to making no further cuts to postdoc funds - Research Professional News Michele Dougherty also promises top-up funding for additional early career researcher positions after outcry

STFC chief commits to making no further cuts to postdoc funds

Michele Dougherty also promises top-up funding for additional early career researcher positions after outcry

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

A UK research council criticised for cutting support for postdoctoral researchers is releasing “top-up funding” to allow for further early career appointments, reports @jgro-the.bsky.social #researchfunding #STFC
https://ow.ly/mI7R50YJ45m

Fast and accurate multiple-protein-sequence alignment at scale with FAMSA2 - Nature Biotechnology FAMSA2 accurately aligns millions of protein sequences at high speed.

Fast and accurate multiple-protein-sequence alignment at scale with FAMSA2 - @sdeorowicz.bsky.social
go.nature.com/4muAQsh

Fast and accurate multiple-protein-sequence alignment at scale with FAMSA2 - Nature Biotechnology FAMSA2 accurately aligns millions of protein sequences at high speed.

10 years after the first FAMSA paper, its successor is now published in Nat Biotech! We believe that FAMSA2 can enable analyses of large protein collections that were previously unattainable. Thank you, Andrzej and Cedric, for great collaboration
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Epigenetic regulation in prokaryotes: transcriptional and phenotypic outcomes of DNA methyltransferase activity This review shows how DNA methylation acts as a regulatory layer in bacteria and archaea, shaping diverse biological traits and behaviours.

Epigenetic regulation in prokaryotes: transcriptional and phenotypic outcomes of DNA methyltransferase activity | FEMS Microbiology Reviews | Oxford Academic academic.oup.com/femsre/advance-article/d...

New preprint from the Vecchiarelli Lab! 🧵

Congratulations to first author Dr. Claire Dudley!
@claire-dudley.bsky.social

Claire uncovered a critical player in the organization for the photosynthetic cytoplasm of cyanobacteria - polyphosphate! #polyP

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

Don’t Perish! A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Scientific Paper (2026 edition) Great science deserves to be read — not buried under unclear writing. This is the updated 2026 edition of your favorite guide to writing…

I just published Don’t Perish! A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Scientific Paper (2026 edition)

Great science deserves to be read—not buried under unclear writing. This is the updated 2026 edition of your favorite guide to writing scientific papers.

medium.com/p/dont-peris...

Structural atlas of the intact jumbo phage phiKZ | Nature Communications https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-71561-2

Interested in synthetic biology & microbiomes? 🧬🧫
We are recruiting a PhD student to develop biosensors to study microbe–microbe & microbe–host interactions.
In beautiful Lausanne, Switzerland🏔️⛵
@dmf-unil.bsky.social @fbm-unil.bsky.social
Apply by 24.05.2026 👇
shorturl.at/6X7M4
Boosts appreciated!

Now out in its final form in @jacs.acspublications.org: Reaction pathways & photoreaction yields of bifunctional lipid probes. The numbers that explain why we spend so much time optimizing protocols for cellular assays. 😉 pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Polyphosphate acts as an architectural regulator of carbon fixation and nucleoid structure in cyanobacteria Polyphosphate (polyP) is a conserved inorganic polymer traditionally viewed as a stress-induced phosphate and energy reserve. In cyanobacteria, however, polyP granules are constitutively present and frequently observed in proximity to carboxysomes, the bacterial microcompartments that mediate CO2 fixation. Here we show that polyP functions as a spatially organized regulator of the photosynthetic cytoplasm in Synechococcus elongatus. PolyP granules localize to the nucleoid and are periodically arranged along the cell axis, independently of the McdAB carboxysome positioning system. Despite this independence, polyP and carboxysomes associate non-randomly, and this association is enhanced when active carboxysome positioning by the McdAB system is disrupted. Loss of polyP synthesis leads to nucleoid expansion, an increased number of smaller carboxysomes with high mobility, and severe defects in growth under ambient CO2. Perturbation of polyP turnover further reveals structural connections to both carboxysomes and thylakoid membranes. Together, these findings identify polyP as an architectural integrator that couples chromosome organization, metabolic compartmentalization, and photosynthetic fitness. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. National Institute of General Medical Sciences, https://ror.org/04q48ey07, R01-GM144731, R35-GM152128 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Polyphosphate acts as an architectural regulator of carbon fixation and nucleoid structure in cyanobacteria | bioRxiv www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04...