1/ Excited to share our preprint! 🥳
Degradation of aromatic compounds, including BTEX pollutants, requires highly endergonic aromatic ring reduction. Using #cryoEM and in situ #cryoET, we show how BCRII couples electron bifurcation modules in one giant redox machine
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
How do “LEGO-like” electron-bifurcating modules combine to drive degradation in BTEX-contaminated ecosystems?
Check out our latest preprint, where we use cryo-EM and cryo-ET to reveal how the 1 MDa BCRII complex powers extremely endergonic aromatic ring reduction.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Jack Szostak "All of these things frighten me, and they should frighten you as well. I made the decision to create a life for myself here, because I viewed this as a place that rewarded determination, hard work, and integrity. It still has a chance to be that place again."
I just completely fell for something that I initially thought was satire because it was so crazy. On further inspection, it was actually satire.
“Einstein was a patent clerk [not a physicist]” tells me that biology isn’t the only thing he doesn’t know anything about
Just got an email from my grad school’s Graduate Research Fund asking me to donate. The really amusing part is that the email addresses me as “Mr. Kountz”. I mean, if there was any organization that should know that I have a PhD…
Solved!
Okay methanogen people (and particularly Methanococcus people): Does anyone have access to this publication?:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
If you do, could you DM me so I can send you my email (and then you could send me the pdf?)
A genetic toolkit for the human gut bacterium Mediterraneibacter gnavus identifies capsular polysaccharides as a competitive colonization factor
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Ex: “Oh you’re from china? Are you a CCP member?”
I mean I’m not really sympathetic to MAGAs who face social consequences for their politics, but I have to admit that in analogous contexts such a question would be strange and fairly rude
📣 I was waiting for this paper for a while 🥳
Our new paper in @pnas.org shows that ATP synthase drastically alters membrane properties related to proton diffusion. Funded by @volkswagenstiftung.de
www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
"My motto is: just do it!" We love this interview w/ Maren Nattermann, Research Group Leader @ Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, on Marjory Stephenson (1885–1948), pioneer of chemical microbiology as well as her own path into science www.mpg.de/26210626/mar... #IWD2026
Hey, I know that building!
Happy to share our new paper on proton transfer in metalloenzymes, out now in @pccp.rsc.org!
Exploiting crystallography, electrochemistry, FTIR spectroscopy, and QM calculations we identified a Zundel ion in the catalytic proton tranfer pathway of [FeFe]-hydrogenase.
doi.org/10.1039/D5CP...
I do what I can, but with spectroscopy humor added
Maybe this is just me, but whenever someone says Mossbauer I think of the book Mossflower in the Redwall series. I can’t be the only one.
So excited to share our cryo-EM study of the nitrogenase cofactor assembly scaffold NifEN expressed in E. coli!
@ribbehulab.bsky.social @ucibiosci.bsky.social @natcatal.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Today, I inoculated a methanogen culture for the first time in at least 10 years. Believe it or not
For red substrate, the reaction is strongly cooperative in the absence of the regulator, but loses the cooperatively when the regulator is present. For the blue substrate, the opposite: the reaction is non-cooperative in the absence of the regulator and strongly cooperative in its presence
Pretty allosteric regulation data from a manuscript I'm writing on my PhD work. Red and blue data are from two alternative substrates. Filled symbols = absence of allosteric regulator. Open symbols: presence of allosteric regulator. X-axis is mM substrate
Coincidentally, your similar long distance from home came to mind when I was writing this post
I’ve had a really positive experience in Germany so far, but from time to time I get a deep feeling of sadness from being so far from home. Not a new thing for a human to experience of course
Evolutionary bioenergetics of sporulation
"energetic cost of sporulation in units of ATP by integrating time-resolved genome, transcriptome, and proteome profiles"
#Bsubtilis #MicroSky
#PNAS by @ckarakoc.bsky.social @shoestrapped.bsky.social @jaytlennon.bsky.social
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Does anyone know a good commercial source of rumen fluid in Europe (Germany in particular)? Maybe I just need to start cultivating a relationship with farmers...
From Joe Krzycki's, Bing Hao's and @djferguson.bsky.social 's labs:
Delineation of the Active Site of MtgB, a Cobalamin-dependent Glycine Betaine Methyltransferase
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
*heftig
My Duolingo lesson yesterday was “describe the weather” and life has given me an opportunity to practice
Das wetter ist sehr schlecht. Es schneit hefting und ich bin kalt
Or the fact they appear to all be full of solidified lb agar?