Shamphavi Sivabalasarma

Like last year, I compiled a little collage of all our monthly issue covers published in @natmicrobiol.nature.com Another year full of new discoveries, stunning advances and marvelous #microbiology. Thanks to all our authors for all their hard work in pushing the field of microbiology forward.

Dynamic protrusions mediate unique crawling motility in Asgard Archaea (Promethearchaeota) Crawling motility is a hallmark of eukaryotic cells and requires a dynamic actin cytoskeleton, regulated adhesion, and spatially organized signalling pathways1–3. Asgard archaea (phylum Promethearchae...

Asgard on the move ! Watch our videos!
Biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.30.690169v1

Nutrient availability affects optimal growth strategy in predatory DPANN | mSystems The bacterial and archaeal domains each possess a major clade that appears to be predominantly host-associated (1–3). These two lineages, Patescibacteriota and DPANN archaea (named for the Diapherotri...

Ever since publishing our observations of the predatory behaviour of Ca. Nha. antarcticus people have asked me why it would want to kill its host. My perspective discussing the ecological factors that I believe led to this behaviour is out now in mSystems:
doi.org/10.1128/msystems.01475-25

Pleased to share our review on S-layers with @bupbuse.bsky.social, Andriko von Kügelgen, and @tbharat-lab.bsky.social, where we explore recent advances and argue that deeper insight into S-layers is key to deciphering microbial interactions and community organization. @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social

1/6
PhD /PostDoc positions available. Exploration of physiological functions of the cell fusogen Fusexin1 in Archaea.
In a collaborative project between the Albers lab (Freiburg) and the Podbilewicz lab (Technion) starting in January 2026.

An Asgard archaeon with internal membrane compartments

Brilliant study led by @fmacleod.bsky.social and Andriko von Kügelgen. Tight collaboration with @buzzbaum.bsky.social and lab. Congrats to all authors!

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

🥳 Today marks the start of the lab of former postdoc @florianwollweber.bsky.social at @embl.org Grenoble!
www.embl.org/groups/wollw...
Florian-- we will miss you dearly and wish you much success!

With us, Florian applied multiscale imaging 🔬to Asgard archaea ...👇

Forgot to post the recently published version of this paper on the role of a minor pilin-like protein in surface sensing journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Lab’s first paper is out!! We show the first structures of #Asgard #chromatin by #cryo-EM 🧬❄️
Asgard histones form closed and open hypernucleosomes. Closed are conserved across #Archaea, while open resemble eukaryotic H3–H4 octasomes and are Asgard-specific. More here: www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Structural phylogenetics unravels the evolutionary diversification of communication systems in gram-positive bacteria and their viruses - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology Using a new method called FoldTree, the authors compare proteins on the basis of their shape to construct more accurate family trees over long evolutionary timescales and capture distant relationships where sequence information becomes less reliable.

Structural phylogenetics unravels the evolutionary diversification of communication systems in gram-positive bacteria and their viruses | Nature Structural & Molecular Biology https://www.nature.com/articles/s41594-025-01649-8

Our Pyrodictium cannulae paper is out in its final form! Cannulae assemble into calcium-stabilized tubular filaments stable at 100 °C—a unique archaeal cell–cell connection. Led brilliantly by @mikesleutel.bsky.social & @vinceconticello.bsky.social.

www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-64120-8

🧐Checkout our preprint revealing the stepwise firing💥 mechanism of a Contractile Injection System @xujwet.bsky.social&@chipericson.bsky.social trapped the complex by structure-guided engineering🧪 in multiple intermediate states and imaged them by multimodal #cryoEM❄️🔬
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Cryo-EM resolves the structure of the archaeal dsDNA virus HFTV1 from head to tail This structure of an archaeal tailed virus (arTV) provides detailed insights into arTV assembly and infection mechanisms.

Out in Science Advances: Our #cryoEM structure of HFTV1, a virus infecting the halophile #archaea. *First full atomic structure (containing all structural proteins) of any tailed virus!* Congrats and thanks to all co-authors and our fantastic collaborators! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Look at this nice cover: beautiful archaella, image made by @sshamphavi.bsky.social !

Thanks also to Marta Rodeiguez for keeping the EM im shape in @ottlab.bsky.social lab!

At @biologyunifreiburg.bsky.social at @uni-freiburg.de @sfb1381.bsky.social @cibss.bsky.social

Our October issue is out now!

The images are negatively stained electron micrographs taken from archaella bundles isolated from the archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius.

Check the issue out here:
www.nature.com/nmicrobiol/v...

Beautiful archaellum filaments on the cover 😍🦠 Thanks to the Imaging Facility within MIAP at @biologyunifreiburg.bsky.social that made it possible! Curious how we got there? check our latest publication: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Spinning into new evolutionary territory🌀🦠: The latest @natmicrobiol.nature.com paper from the lab of our Speaker Sonja Albers uncovers bacterial species with an ATP-driven archaellum for motility. Great work from @sshamphavi.bsky.social and our Cryo-EM facility

Structure of a functional archaellum in Bacteria of the Chloroflexota phylum - Nature Microbiology Bona fide gene clusters for archaella are widespread across a bacterial phylum and encode functional motility machinery.

#NewResearch

Structure of a functional archaellum in Bacteria of the Chloroflexota phylum

@archaellum.bsky.social @sgribaldo.bsky.social & co

#microsky 🧪🦠

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

Well that is a compliment! Great to hear that

Bacteria with archaella, who would have thought that this existed. Happy to share that it does 🎉and we just published it today in @natmicrobiol.nature.com 🎉🥳. Congrats to everyone involved! 🦠

The state has funded a large amount of initiatives to make lab work more green and sustainable 🌱, including the "Nachhaltiger Bio-Campus Freiburg" proposal by our @corneliaklose.bsky.social & Henriette Rübsam. Congratulations!

A realistic phantom dataset for benchmarking cryo-ET data annotation - Nature Methods A standardized, realistic phantom dataset consisting of ground-truth annotations for six diverse molecular species is provided as a community resource for cryo-electron-tomography algorithm benchmarki...

Better ML for cryo-ET starts with better benchmarks.

We built a phantom cryo-ET dataset (~500 tomograms) + hosted a Kaggle challenge.

The result: community models beat expert tools.

Read more in the @natmethods.nature.com article that just came out:
🔗 doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Started a PhD in the field of Archaea, ended up writing a paper about a bacterium! Enjoy new insights into the cell biology of Litorilinea aerophila, a member of the Chloroflexota 🦠

Chloroflexi rules! Thrilled to share our latest preprint on this amazing bacterial (😱) organism of Chloroflexota. Long filaments, fascinating cell surface structures😍 Kudos to everyone involved and especially @mariejoest.bsky.social!

Deep learning reveals antibiotics in the archaeal proteome - Nature Microbiology Use of artificial intelligence to mine proteomes of archaea led to the discovery of archaeasins, antimicrobials that kill drug-resistant bacteria in laboratory and animal models, offering a promising ...

(1/5)For over a century, the hunt for new antibiotics has focused almost exclusively on bacteria and fungi. Today, that paradigm shifts. By coupling state-of-the-art AI with the vast, largely uncharted diversity of Archaea, we open a new frontier for molecular discovery.

Check out 🧐 our new preprint 📜:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Congrats🎉 to @vasilgaisin.bsky.social and Corina Hadjicharalambous, who studied contractile injection systems directly in hot spring♨️ bacterial mats🦠
#microsky #teamtomo #Chloroflexota

Regulation of YAP activity by nuclear G-actin binding The Yes-associated protein YAP belongs to the TEAD (TEA/ATTS domain) transcriptional co-activators that shuttle between cytoplasm and nuclear compartment. YAP and its paralog TAZ (transcriptional co-a...

Hi all, check out our new preprint where we uncover:"Regulation of YAP activity by nuclear G-actin binding", www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
#actin #YAP/TAZ #transcription #nucleus with help from Sonja-Verena Albers
‪@archaellum.bsky.social‬

Finally out of embargo!!
Happy to be among the recipients of a Chaire d'excellence from @agencerecherche.bsky.social
www.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/fr/media/37482
to further knowledge on #archaea #methanogens of the human #microbiome. We'll be very busy for the next 5 years @pasteur.fr !!

Congrats Simonetta! 🎉

After 5 amazing years @pilhoferlab.bsky.social I'm starting my lab @embl.org Grenoble this November embl.org/wollweber
We'll image Asgard archaea and many other strange microbes ( #archaeasky, #protistsonsky..) to understand eukaryogenesis
First job ad: #teamtomo scientist!🔬❄️ tinyurl.com/2rdu2ze6