Félix Ramos-León

Super excited to share our paper online 🚨today🚨 in Cell Host & Microbe‬! Xiaomei Ren @xiaomeiren.bsky.social and Mason Clark @rmasonclark.bsky.social‬ co-led discovery of ecological factors for Acinetobacter baumannii carriage in the gut, a reservoir for pathogen spread. 🎉

tinyurl.com/443kfefk

DNA replication initiation timing is important for maintaining genome integrity | Journal of Bacteriology The regulation of DNA replication is fundamental to cell growth and cell cycle control. In eukaryotes, under-initiation or over-initiation leads to genome instability. In bacteria, it is unclear how c...

DNA replication initiation timing is important for maintaining genome integrity | Journal of Bacteriology journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

I will be there! Looking forward to catching up Amelia!

Environmental cues in different host niches shape the survival fitness of Staphylococcus aureus - Nature Communications Staphylococcus aureus adapts to diverse host environments during infection. Here, the authors use transposon sequencing to reveal niche-specific genes and identify 27 core genes required for S. aureus...

Exciting new paper from Wonsik Lee's group in Korea, using TnSeq to study gene essentiality in various intracellular and extracellular infection niches of S aureus. Loads of cool insights into metabolism and nutrient acquisition in the host

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

Polypeptides synthesized by common bacteria in the human gut improve rodent metabolism - Nature Microbiology Two polypeptides synthesized by common bacterial strains in human gut microbiota lower body fat and blood glucose and increase bone density, improving the metabolism of rodents.

🦠 ENDOCRINOLOGY?

RORDEP1/2 secreted by gut commensal 𝘙𝘶𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘰𝘤𝘤𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴 mimic exercise hormone irisin → systemic effects on host metabolism

⭡ thermogenesis, insulin signaling, glycolysis

↓ gluconeogenesis, lipogenesis

These peptides may be candidate biologics for obesity and type 2 diabetes

A single transcriptional regulator is crucial for the adaptation of Staphylococcus aureus to diverse niches https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.01.668060v1

Staphylococcus aureus exploits lipoic acid salvage to combat host oxidative stress Acosta et al. find that ADP-ribosylation of the lipoic acid carrier protein GcvH-L promotes Staphylococcus aureus resistance to oxidative burst and facilitates infection. ADP-ribosylation leads to a s...

Happy to share Iván’s first-author pub from the lab! www.cell.com/cell-reports...

The second messenger c-di-AMP controls natural competence via ComFB signaling protein Cell Discovery - The second messenger c-di-AMP controls natural competence via ComFB signaling protein

Happy to share our latest finding @natureportfolio.nature.com on #cdiAMP signaling roles in #cyanobacteria natural competence via #ComFB (a new family of #cdiNMP receptors)
@hhu.de @cmfi.bsky.social @biologyunifreiburg.bsky.social
Fund @dfg.de @sfb1381.bsky.social
@mibinet.bsky.social
rdcu.be/eyLXT

New short story from my postdoc in the Bassler lab is up on bioRxiv!

Turns out our favorite quorum sensing responsive phage VP882 is a member of a larger family of phages that is distributed across multiple bacterial species and can eavesdrop on a universally conserved autoinducer.

#PhageSky 🦠🧫

Escherichia coli with a 57-codon genetic code The near-universal genetic code uses 64 codons to encode the 20 canonical amino acids and protein synthesis. Here we designed and generated Escherichia coli with a 4 Mb synthetic genome in which we re...

Escherichia coli with a 57-codon genetic code | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

U.S. Visa Bureaucracy and Its Burdens Among Early Career Scholars Foreign-born research scholars on temporary visas are essential to the U.S. scientific workforce and economy, yet they face systemic challenges shaped by restrictive immigration policies. While schola...

📣 Thrilled to share the first paper from ReForm Lab

Are you an international scholar on a visa? Faculty with international students in your lab and class? Student center workers? For the 1st time, we report data on visa burdens from over 700 ECRs.

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

Peptidoglycan–outer membrane attachment generates periplasmic pressure to prevent lysis in Gram-negative bacteria - Nature Microbiology Outer membrane attachment to peptidoglycan enables periplasmic pressure to build up and counter cytoplasmic turgor pressure, preventing lysis during osmotic challenges in Escherichia coli.

#microsky
We challenge the long-standing view that peptidoglycan alone protects cells from bursting.

Our study shows that the periplasm — enclosed by OM–PG connections — acts as a pressure buffer essential for osmoprotection in Gram-negative bacteria.

📄 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Please RT! Call for Fellows! If you’re a structural biologist and wanting to start your lab by applying for an external Fellowship then we at Imperial may be excited to host you. Synthetic biologists too.. Please submit expression of interest with details below 🙏

www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperi...

Mount Holyoke College in lovely western Massachusetts is hiring a tenure-track neuroscientist. Amazing students and fantastic faculty support - please share!
mtholyoke.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Extern...

Microbial metal physiology: ions to ecosystems Nature Reviews Microbiology - Metal ions are required for all cells, and their homeostasis relies on ancient mechanisms that facilitate their import, distribution and storage. In this Review,...

Metal ions are universally required for life, and many of the foundational principles of metal homeostasis have emerged from studies of microbial systems. In this review, I provide a introductory overview targeted to those new to the field.
#MicroSky #Metals

rdcu.be/eycU2

Zinc mediates control of nitrogen fixation via transcription factor filamentation - Nature Zinc acts as a second messenger in root nodules and regulates nitrogen homeostasis by controlling the transition between the active state and the inactive filamentous state of the novel transcriptiona...

Zinc mediates control of nitrogen fixation via transcription factor filamentation | Nature share.google/p2nWbHlmyVwn...

Staphylococcus aureus: a model for bacterial cell biology and pathogenesis | Journal of Bacteriology When talking about Staphylococcus aureus, one usually has in mind the diseases that can be caused by this bacterium, ranging from mild skin and soft tissue infections, such as abscesses and furuncles,...

"Among all bacterial species, S. aureus ranks second only to E. coli in the number of scientific publications."
It was a pleasure to contribute to this review, with @pinholab.bsky.social and Friedrich Götz
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

From @diamondlab.bsky.social
Stable #cyanobacteria communities w/ heterotrophs. An important development for folks working on cyanobacteria, microbial community formation and establishment in lab settings

Could be interesting for @mibinet.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

Excited to share this collaborative study with @ritatamayo.bsky.social showing that E. faecalis influences C. diff morphology through the phase variable CmrRST system! This work was co-led by the amazing team of @ashleyweiss.bsky.social and Jilarie Santos-Santiago!

Still open for applications! We are looking for prospective new faculty doing exciting research in virology or any vector borne diseases

Strategies and mechanisms of contact-dependent predation in bacteria Predatory bacteria kill other bacteria to acquire nutrients. Among diverse strategies to kill and feed on prey, contact-dependent predation stands out…

#MicroSky Summer read!

Predatory bacteria kill and eat other bacteria. Their deadly actions come in many flavors, often via direct physical contact between predator &
prey 🧛

How do they do it?
Our review 📖 @coralietesseur.bsky.social @ysantin.bsky.social

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

Cellular coordination underpins rapid reversals in gliding filamentous cyanobacteria and its loss results in plectonemes Gliding multicellular cyanobacteria results from cellular coordination, the loss of which results in the collapse of orderly back-and-forth movement of filaments and in filament buckling.

Cellular coordination underpins rapid reversals in gliding filamentous cyanobacteria and its loss results in plectonemes doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

Wild cell structures in a new Asgard, Nerearchaeum marumarumayae. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Left: Compound-promoter interaction network. Fifty-three significant compound-promoter interactions are shown as edges in a Sankey diagram connecting the compounds (left, source nodes) to the promoters (right, target nodes). Edge thickness represents mean Z-scores (n = 8), while node size represents the total number of interactions. Right: Proposed model for the molecular mechanism of caffeine-ciprofloxacin antagonism. Caffeine triggers expression of MicF small RNA in a Rob-dependent manner, which then binds to the 5′-UTR of ompF mRNA to inhibit and decrease OmpF protein levels. This ultimately prevents ciprofloxacin from entering the cell, resulting in caffeine-ciprofloxacin antagonism

How are bacterial transport machineries regulated by external cues? @brochadolab.bsky.social &co identify environmental chemicals that regulate #transporter transcription, identifying the TF Rob as a key modulator of #EffluxPump expression in #Ecoli #AMR @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/46pUM9Q

Honored to share my journey and more importantly, how we can support the next generation of scientists in navigating the challenges of scientific mobility 🌍

Thank you @cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social for this initiative and for giving visibility to stories that otherwise would have remained hidden 👏

And the story is published now!🍾
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Open access link: rdcu.be/exnOc

Many years in the making, great collaboration with @archaellum.bsky.social & @tunglejic.bsky.social

Thanks @ukri.org BBSRC & @leverhulme.ac.uk for funding, reviewers & editor!! 🙏
#microsky #archaeasky

*JOB AD*: interested in doing a postdoc in microbial metabolomics? Passionate about natural products mass spec?

Come join the group! Informal enquires welcome!

Closing Date: 19 August 2025

jobs.ncl.ac.uk/job/Newcastl...

Editor's Pick: Shen, Ye et al. review recent literature on the role of bacterial ribosome heterogeneity on facilitating rapid response to stress.
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
@asm.org #JBacteriology

Mechanism of lateral cell-wall expansion at a constant diameter in Bacillus subtilis - Nature Communications In Escherichia coli, lateral cell-wall expansion during growth occurs by crosslinking of new glycan chains to the existing peptidoglycan network. Here, Liang et al. show a different mechanism in the G...

Mechanism of lateral cell-wall expansion at a constant diameter in Bacillus subtilis

-in @natcomms.nature.com

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

Global dissemination of npmA mediated pan-aminoglycoside resistance via a mobile genetic element in Gram-positive bacteria - Nature Communications The authors investigate the distribution of the aminoglycoside resistance gene npmA in Gram-positive bacteria via a mobile genetic element, highlighting its global presence and cross-species transfer ...

Aminoglycoside resistance is rising, driven by 16S rRNA methyltransferases like NpmA, which can block ALL drugs in the class

Once rare, the 𝘯𝘱𝘮𝘈2 gene is now spreading via transposons among medically important Gram-positive species including 𝘊𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘰𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘭𝘦 and 𝘌𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘰𝘤𝘤𝘶𝘴 𝘧𝘢𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘶𝘮
⚠️ ‼️