Structure-informed deep generation enables de novo metabolite annotation in untargeted metabolomics www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

Chemoproteomic Elucidation of β-Lactam Drug Targets in Mycobacterium abscessus The pathogen Mycobacterium abscessus (Mab) can cause severe and difficult-to-treat chronic lung infections. Despite the rising incidence and clinical concern of Mab infections, treatment options are l...

New work from my team: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...
We used probes to ID targets of carbapenems in M. abscessus. 17 targets active in both carbon starved and replicating cultures. Includes validation of 9 targets. Part of a special issue ("NTM Pathogens – Biology, Infection, and Drug Discovery).

How does Mycobacterium tuberculosis safely eat an antimicrobial (host-derived long-chain fatty acids)?

Here we show that it’s not through a dedicated mechanism but rather by fine tuning its metabolism.

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

#Postdocjob: Are you eager to investigate how the impact of environmental stressors on ecosystems is related to the size of organisms and communities? Then join the ERC Advanced Grant project ’The Power of Size’ to find out!
www.ru.nl/en/working-a...

My super department @warwicklifesci.bsky.social is hiring 6 assistant profs in the wake of recent retirements. We're looking for people in microbiology/infection, cellular disease / immunity; environmental biology; and plant/crop science. #MicroSky warwick-careers.tal.net/vx/lang-en-G...

Chemical dialogues at the crossroads of host–bacteria interactions Microbiomes are now recognised as the second genome of eukaryotes, providing diverse life-support functions for their hosts. The impact of microbiome members on the growth and health of their hosts is...

Chemical dialogues at the crossroads of host–bacteria interactions

@cp-trendsplantsci.bsky.social by Emtinan Diab, Nicola Thome, Somayah Elsayed, @raaijmakersjm.bsky.social and @gillesvanwezel.bsky.social

www.cell.com/trends/micro...

Decoding the Oxylipin Chemical Space Using Ion Identity Molecular Networking Oxylipins are bioactive lipid mediators that play key roles in biological and pathological processes. Their remarkable chemical diversity makes their identification by untargeted LC-MS/MS analyses cha...

pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/... Another step for oxylipins. Now with ion identity. Thank you the Barbas team for this great collaboration . And of course @angelsi.bsky.social

Disappointing but important news in TB vaccine research.
A large phase 3 trial (~12,700 participants, 38 months follow-up) testing VPM1002 and Immuvac in household contacts of TB cases did not show meaningful protection against pulmonary TB, the form that drives transmission.
#IDSky #MedSky

This work was spearheaded by PhD candidate Pieter van der Velden and was a great collaboration with organic chemists Thomas Boltje, Jona Merx and Paul White, and medical microbiologists/infectious disease MDs Jakko van Ingen, Reinout van Crevel, Eva Terschlüsen and Ingrid van Weerdenburg.

Interestingly, homologs of Rv1722 are predominantly present in slow-growing mycobacteria, which contains many human pathogens.

We are very excited that our metabolite-first approach enabled the discovery of a completely new metabolic stress response pathway in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Production of GABA-trehalose under stress was driven by an increase in GABA, which we think is produced because of the changed redox balance under hypoxia and nitric oxide exposure.

Activity-guided protein fractionation identified the enzyme that produces GABA-trehalose as the uncharacterized ATP-grasp enzyme Rv1722. Rv1722 ligates GABA and trehalose using ATP, so we named it GABA-trehalose synthetase.

We used a metabolite-centric approach to search for unknown stress-responsive metabolites and then identify their biosynthetic enzyme. GABA-trehalose is produced in response to hypoxia and nitric oxide and upon infection of macrophages. Under stress, it can reach millimolar intracellular levels!

Very excited to share our preprint on the discovery of the new metabolite GABA-trehalose and its biosynthetic enzyme in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

A thread.

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

Where has this molecule been detected before across samples, organisms, body parts, and environments?
With StructureMASST, you can explore this directly by entering a molecule name and running a search in your browser.
🔗 structure-masst.gnps2.org
📄 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Carbon monoxide metabolism in freshwater anaerobic methanotrophic archaea - Nature Communications Anaerobic methane-oxidizing archaea mitigate methane emissions in anoxic environments. Here, Egas et al. show that these microbes can also oxidize carbon monoxide, prompting re-evaluation of their cla...

Grab a coffee and enjoy reading up on CO metabolism in methanotrophs!

Freshwater ANME (own work):
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Marine ANME (@Orphan lab):
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Big thanks to our collaborators at QUT!
@sjmcilroy.bsky.social (Heyu/Andy/Gene!) @cuwelte.bsky.social

Methane-consuming microorganisms are more selective than previously thought: they prefer carbon monoxide | Radboud University Research by microbiologists Reinier Egas and Cornelia Welte of Radboud University shows that many methane-consuming microorganisms actually prefer carbon monoxide over methane. When carbon monoxide is...

Research by microbiologists @raegas.bsky.social and @cuwelte.bsky.social of @ribesresearch.bsky.social shows that many methane-consuming microorganisms actually prefer carbon monoxide over methane. When carbon monoxide is present, they consume far less methane. 1/2

Now out in @acs.org JACS Au, the manuscript by #BarbaraTerlouw et al. describing PARAS, a high-accuracy machine-learning algorithm to predict substrate specificities of nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) adenylation domains, key for estimating natural product structures from BGC sequence. 1/n

This is a great opportunity! Johannes is a brilliant colleague that does very exciting research in the field of metabolic modelling 👇

PhD positions in hadal biogeochemistry & microbial ecology Application deadline: 4 May 2026 at 23:59 hours local Danish time

📣We have 5 PhD positions in hadal biogeochemistry and microbial ecology at the Danish Center for Hadal Research: lnkd.in/eJ6rp_Rk. 📣

Deadline: 4 May 2026

Please share widely!

fa-eosd-saasfaprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

We're hiring a Postdoctoral Fellow!

How does Mycobacterium tuberculosis survive drug treatment? You'll use molecular genetics and single-cell approaches to investigate how gene expression variability drives drug-tolerant subpopulations.

Full details and application instructions below.

📣 Job Offer: Professor of Synthetic Organic Chemistry and Professor of (Bio)Analytical Chemistry @ethz.ch
🗓️ Deadline for applications is May 31, 2026
📥 apply online via www.bi.id.ethz.ch/recruiting_a...

From Molecules to Metabolomes, Understanding Symbiosis through Small Molecules Symbiosis, from Greek “living together” refers to the close association among organisms. Although these associations are found everywhere in nature, we do not know how these relationships are establis...

Our perspective “From Molecules to Metabolomes, Understanding Symbiosis through Small Molecules” is part of the special issue “Natural Product Signals – from Microbiomes to the Environment” (many other great papers too!) is available in the Journal of Natural Products pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Congratulations to Isabel Rigutto for the KIEM award at #KNVM2026 - best first author PhD publication in environmental microbiology area

See their paper:
enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

PhD supervisor
@msmjetten.bsky.social

Save the date 18 september 2026 Koninklijke Nederlandse Vereniging voor Microbiologie (KNVM) Early Career Scientists Day in Wageningen
#microbiology #phd #postdoc
lnkd.in/ezQ3hwYF

‼️ A really good meeting for people working on host-pathogen interactions! Great keynote speakers this year: Raphael Valdivia and Florence Niedergang. Please repost!

How we analyze untargeted metabolomics data - yet another metabolomics club As a lab primarily interested in metabolomics applications, our publications usually focus on the biological results and their relevance. Much more rarely do we describe the infrastructure that turns ...

A long due overview of our "secret" engine:
metabolomics.blog/2026/03/how-...

#metabolomics #lipidomics #lcms #compms #masster

We've been we've been working on this for quite a while now (hopefully published soon). Grateful to @proftracypalmer.bsky.social for concinving me & @lislowe.bsky.social that mycobacteria produce inter-bacterial toxins. Team science, led by @sambenedict5.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

All currently approved antibiotics inhibit essential cellular processes. Ever wonder if we could kill bacteria using the opposite strategy?

Here, we demonstrate an alternative antibacterial strategy: lethality through pathway over-activation.

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

(1 out of 3)

Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, remains one of the deadliest infectious diseases worldwide. Meanwhile, non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are an increasing global health concern. NTM infections often resemble TB clinically, which can lead to misdiagnosis and inappropriate therapy. Additionally, drug-resistant strains of M. tuberculosis and NTM exacerbate the global antimicrobial resistance crisis. A better understanding of the biology of mycobacterial pathogens and of the mechanisms underlying disease pathogenesis and transmission is critical to reduce their burden worldwide. This EMBO Workshop is the fourth in a successful series held at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, following the meetings organized in 2012, 2016, and 2022. It will bring together scientists, clinicians, public health experts, and representatives from industry and non-profit organizations, who will share recent insights into mycobacterial infections, from fundamental discoveries to translational research, and their practical implications. The program will cover mycobacterial evolution, physiology, metabolism, host–pathogen interactions, immune responses, mechanisms of drug evasion, therapeutic strategies, vaccines, and diagnostics. Emerging experimental models, computational approaches, and artificial intelligence will also be addressed, showing how recent technologies contribute to advancing mycobacterial research and interventions.

🧬 EMBO Workshop – The complexity of mycobacterial infections: from research to real-world impact

📅 14–18 Sept 2026, Paris

Tuberculosis & non-tuberculous mycobacteria at the heart of discussions: evolution, host–pathogen interactions, drug resistance.

🔗 meetings.embo.org/event/26-myc...