Had lots of fun too at the Memb Prot Conf in Birmingham a few days prior, getting to know @chrismulligan.bsky.social, @gavinhthomas.bsky.social, @allistercrow.bsky.social, @renaeryan.bsky.social and catching up Andy Lovering, Jani Bolla, @pstansfeld.bsky.social & @davidroper2.bsky.social of course!

If you’re attending @microbiologysociety.org 2026 keep an eye out for Luke Shipley from the MORF-Bio team. He’ll explain how to explore your microbial data through interactive, visual tools with MORF Genomes.

🎁 And there’s a £100 Amazon voucher up for grabs!

If you spot Luke, come and say hello!

What is a Superbug? The global threat of antibiotic resistance YouTube video by Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Check out the first of our public lectures on AMR run by the YPS - kicked off by the fantastic Prof. Jess Blair from Birmingham. What is a superbug? @jessicamablair.bsky.social @ypsyork.bsky.social @ybri-uoy.bsky.social - two more in the series coming soon!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFYs...

Sure that would be interesting. Perhaps @josebengoechea.bsky.social would be interested too if about cell surface modification and host interaction. Can you send the sequence of the acyT gene as I can't find it in the paper!

This would be a totally new function. Alternatively it could be important for seroconversion (we know AT3's are in Salmonella) by changing CPS or LPS structure - did you test for this function?

I can't find the sequence, but you say its an SGNH fusion, which we often see (for LPS modifying AT3). Hence very surprised by your data on modification of cytoplasmic proteins via lysine acetylation.

Diverse functions for acyltransferase-3 proteins in the modification of bacterial cell surfaces The acylation of sugars, most commonly via acetylation, is a widely used mechanism in bacteria that uses a simple chemical modification to confer useful traits. For structures like lipopolysaccharide,...

Very interesting Alan. It says near the end that AcyT is an AT3 protein? Is this right? If so then these proteins normally acylate surface glycans (see www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...).

It is with deep sadness that we share the passing of Professor Jeff Cole. An esteemed academic, Jeffs research on bacterial adaptation to oxygen and nitrosative stress made a lasting impact on the field. He mentored nearly 60 doctoral students, our thoughts are with his family, friends & colleagues

Fungal-derived cellobiose metabolic pathway fuels T cells to bypass intratumoral glucose competition Solid tumors harbor immunosuppressive microenvironments that inhibit tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) through the voracious consumption of glucos…

"Nobody will care about your work about sugar metabolism and transporters in Neurospora crassa"

Nobody can predict what can happen with your work.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The disputed identity of Pseudomonas putida KT2440: when taxonomists rename your favorite microbe | mBio Names matter; they are not mere labels. They operate as anchors of memory, social coordinates, and references of collective identity. When a name becomes established through long-term use and broad ad...

How do you react when your favorite microbe is renamed by taxonomists who are completely outside your field—and who ignore the community that actually works with it? Here is our clear answer re the case of Pseudomonas putida KT2440 👉🏻 journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Heading down to the Festival of Genomics to tell people about MORF and get the latest on Microbial genomics - give me a DM if you’d like to chat 👍

Proud supervisor moment - these two superstars Reyme Herman and Imran Khan (@imrsankhan.bsky.social) graduated today from @biologyatyork.bsky.social. Both key members of the group in developing our Staphylococcal research & much more.

The Mannose Phosphotransferase System in Enterococcus lactis Is Essential for Gastrointestinal Colonization Enterococcus lactis, a recently established species that was previously classified as Enterococcus faecium clade B. Given its recent taxonomic classification, studies on this bacterium are scarce, an...

Interesting new paper on Enterococcus lactis (the species formerly known as Clade B E. faecium)

'The Mannose Phosphotransferase System in Enterococcus lactis Is Essential for Gastrointestinal Colonization'

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Thomas Lab @ York Gavin Thomas lab in York

Deadline 7th Jan. See researches pages of
@GavinHThomas
(thomaslabyork.weebly.com), Emily Flack (york.ac.uk/biology/peop...) & Martin Fascione (fascionelab.com)

Breaking the surface of Pseudomonas: elucidation of the biochemical basis of pseudaminic acid transport and catabolism in bacteria (York YBDTP Project) at University of York on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Breaking the surface of Pseudomonas: elucidation of the biochemical basis of pseudaminic acid transport and catabolism in bacteria (York YBDTP Project) at University of York, listed on ...

Interested in the sugars bacteria use to evade our immune system? We are looking to train a student across microbiology & biochemistry to discover the mechanisms for scavenging & recycling these sugars & and join the thriving glycobiology community in York
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

York Knavesmire shrouded in mist, with lone figure about to be consumed..

Can't beat the weather in York....#notjealous

Hamilton O. Smith, Who Made a Biotech Breakthrough, Is Dead at 94

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/s...

Polymyxins slow down lateral diffusion of proteins and lipopolysaccharide in the E. coli outer membrane - Communications Biology Multi-scale molecular dynamics simulations reveal that polymyxins form polymyxin-protein aggregates upon associating with the E. coli outer membrane thereby reducing lateral mobility of outer membrane...

Our paper on polymyxin interacting with the E. coli outer membrane is out! Simulations by the very talented @dheerajprakaash.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s42...

To scale outer membrane protein island simulated at coarse-grained resolution with portions refined at all atom resolution.

Amazing dataset describing the metabolic profiles of 66 E. coli transporter knockouts by @sulheim.bsky.social with Peter Doubleday and @nzamboni.bsky.social. The tool, set up by @lambdapp.bsky.social and Eric Ulrich allows you to explore for yourself. Enjoy! Pre-print here: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

MRC DiMeN Doctoral Training Partnership: Doubling down: determining the dual function of VanT in C. difficile antibiotic resistance. at University of Sheffield on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - MRC DiMeN Doctoral Training Partnership: Doubling down: determining the dual function of VanT in C. difficile antibiotic resistance. at University of Sheffield, listed on FindAPhD.com

The deadline for the first of our three fully funded PhD studentships is tomorrow! Determining the role of the dual-function VanT in C. diff vancomycin resistance. Collab with @gavinhthomas.bsky.social and Marjan van der Woude

Metabolites are not genes — avoiding the misuse of pathway analysis in metabolomics - Nature Metabolism Pathway analysis, originally developed for gene expression data, has been adapted for metabolomics. However, owing to the unique characteristics and constraints of metabolites compared with genes, pathway analysis in metabolomics often yields misleading or nonsensical results.

#Throwback 🧪

COMMENT | Metabolites are not genes — avoiding the misuse of pathway analysis in metabolomics

KS Lee, X Su & T Huan

High-resolution Staphylococcus profiling reveals intra-species diversity in a single skin niche The skin microbiome is dominated by a few key genera, among which Staphylococcus is one of the most well characterized. Recent studies have examined the roles of various Staphylococcus species such as...

Interestingly, some of the Staphylococcus epidermidis that we found in people's underarms do make their own biotin, unlike most of the other axilla Staphs.
www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

Competitive fitness of Staphylococcus aureus against nasal commensals depends on biotin biosynthesis and acquisition Abstract. The human nasal microbiome can serve as a reservoir for pathogens. In particular, the opportunistic pathogen Staphylococcus aureus can be a membe

Very nice work from Simon Heilbronner's lab in Munich, which we heard at the Staph GRC this summer. Plenty more of these kinds of interactions going on in these communities I think.
academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...

Our sLola consortium is now in BlueSky! Worth following for future updates on our work with IM30 proteins including LiaH, PspA, and VIPP's.

Now properly published at @natcomms.nature.com with few additional experiments incl. demonstration of Daptomycin's ability to depolarise non-growing cells.
See the original preprint-thread for a summary of our findings.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#microsky

Delighted that @morfdb.bsky.social will be helping with data sharing and developing new web-based tools for data analysis in this project :-)

Structural basis of isethionate transport by a TRAP transporter from a sulfate-reducing bacterium Newton-Vesty et al. used a megabody fiducial to determine the cryo-EM structure of an isethionate TRAP transporter, revealing the substrate and Na+-binding sites. Transport is dependent on Na+ and the...

Check out our new paper:
🔗 www.cell.com/structure/fu...

We explored how sulfate-reducing bacteria import isethionate, a sulfur-containing molecule found in the environment and produced by microbes in the human gut. We captured a structure of the IseQM TRAP transporter in a substrate-bound state.

Contrast this with the response of a president who was an actual decent human being.

From left to right: Willem, Freya, Jess and Rob. We are standing in front of a wall with a congratulations banner and some left-over Halloween decorations.

Absolutely delighted (and proud) that @freyaallen.bsky.social passed her viva with minor corrections today.

Thanks very much @jessicamablair.bsky.social @robfagan.bsky.social for examining!

A simplified version of Figure 4 from our paper https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002741 describing the evolution of vancomycin resistance in C. difficile. The shows phase contract and fluorescence microscopy images of a wild type and a vancomycin resistant C. difficile. In the fluorescence channel can be seen vancomycin -bodipy binding to the mid-cells of wild type cells but this labelling is absent in the resistant bacteria

1. Characterising the role of the dual-function VanT in C. difficile vancomycin resistance.
A collaboration between our group in @molmicrosheffield.bsky.social and the groups of @gavinhthomas.bsky.social and Marjan van der Woude at the University of York

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...