LauraMA

See also the associated paper by Marcelo Torres, Fangping Wan & Cesar de la Fuente-Nunez

@delafuentelab.bsky.social

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

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! 🦠

List of 30 CloneFISH cultures available for free (requester is asked to pay shipping fees).

Manuscript/resource alert #microsky 🦠 My lab offers the community a collection of 30 E. coli (CloneFISH) cultures, each carrying a plasmid for the heterologous expression of a (near) full-length 16S rRNA gene from one of 30 lineages of archaea, including 19 yet uncultured ones.

A cellular entity retaining only its replicative core: Hidden archaeal lineage with an ultra-reduced genome Defining the minimal genetic requirements for cellular life remains a fundamental question in biology. Genomic exploration continually reveals novel microbial lineages, often exhibiting extreme genome...

Joining the race to the bottom has never been cooler...
www.biorxiv.org/node/4580343...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The Archaeacast! Yes, a podcast about #archaea!
by Priyanka Chatterjee, @cjhines.bsky.social, Alex Phillips, Theopi Rados & guests!
Sixth episode: Archaea and Us: Heroes or Villains?
rss.com/podcasts/arc...
@archaeapowerhour.bsky.social @archaeabio.bsky.social
#microsky

A bacterial CARD-NLR immune system controls the release of gene transfer agents Bacteria have evolved a wide array of immune systems to detect and defend against external threats including mobile genetic elements (MGEs) such as bacteriophages, plasmids, and transposons. MGEs are ...

1/ Excited to share our latest work on gene transfer agents (GTAs) in Caulobacter crescentus, led by Emma Banks in collaboration with Pavol Bardy and Mai Nguyen from York!!! See a brief thread below.
shorturl.at/o6S1w

Thank you for reading and thanks to all co-authors!

Therefore, in complex systems, proteins can serve multiple roles. Our findings highlight the importance of studying viral functions in their full biological context, and not just in overexpression setups. (10/n)

We also analyzed 24 other viral AcrIII-1 homologs in archaea. Most are not expressed early and lack strong promoters, making them unlikely to act as Acrs in vivo. (9/n)

Our data show cA4 influences viral fitness even without CRISPR systems, suggesting non-defense roles for this molecule that deserve further attention. (8/n)

In fact, ring nuclease activity isn’t required for this advantage. SIRV2 gp37 appears multifunctional, since it also interacts with host proteins and may modulate cA4-linked pathways in ways unrelated to defense. (7/n)

So, what does gp37 actually do? It binds and inhibits a host protein methyltransferase, giving the virus a fitness advantage that’s independent of CRISPR immunity. (6/n)

We confirmed this by engineering early gp29 expression using an inducible promoter. This restored Acr activity and allowed viral replication under CRISPR pressure. (5/n)

The reason for this is timing: gp37 is expressed mid/late in infection—too late to stop CRISPR-Cas, which acts early. Early expression is crucial for anti-CRISPR function. (4/n)

We tested the native homolog, gp37 from SIRV2, in its natural host. But when gp37 is expressed from the virus genome, it shows no anti-CRISPR activity. (3/n)

AcrIII-1 is a ring nuclease that degrades cA4, a key signaling molecule in type III CRISPR-Cas immunity.
Earlier studies showed that AcrIII-1 (like SIRV1 gp29) inhibits CRISPR, but only when overexpressed from plasmids in non-native systems. (2/n)

Natively expressed AcrIII-1 does not function as an anti-CRISPR protein Nature - Natively expressed AcrIII-1 does not function as an anti-CRISPR protein

Our new paper on archaeal anti-CRISPRs is out in
@Nature (@SpringerNature)! 🔗 rdcu.be/eh1Ma
Using a native virus–host model (SIRV2–S. islandicus), we show that overexpression in foreign hosts can lead to false positives.
🧵(1/n) #CRISPR #archaea #antiCRISPR #virology

♀️🇲🇽🧪🦠 This paper about the challenges of being a female microbiologist in México is authored by four women central to my career:
my PhD supervisor Valeria Souza
my PhD committee member Gabriela Olmedo
my PhD colleagues Esmeralda Lopez and Ana Escalante

doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...

New paper! We analyzed gut #microbiomes of 250+ individuals (ages 19–109).
#Centenarians often show a high-methanogen “human cow” phenotype 🐄, with #Methanobrevibacter smithii dominance and youth-like archaeal profiles. #Archaea may stabilize networks in aging.

Link: rdcu.be/egk03

@archaeasky

Tissue-like multicellular development triggered by mechanical compression in archaea The advent of clonal multicellularity is a critical evolutionary milestone, seen often in eukaryotes, rarely in bacteria, and only once in archaea. We show that uniaxial compression induces clonal mul...

#weekendreading🔬📑

Tissue-like multicellular development triggered by mechanical compression in archaea

@science.org #microsky

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Advancing archaeal research through FAIR resource and data sharing, and inclusive community building - Communications Biology Archaeal research and its growing importance have benefited from a community that is engaged in various collaborative efforts, which are highlighted here with examples for the sharing of resources and...

From the @commsbio.bsky.social journal | Advancing archaeal research through FAIR resource and data sharing, and inclusive community building | #Bioinformatics #FAIR #OpenScience
#OpenAccess #OpenData 🧬 🖥️ 🧪 🔓
⬇️
www.nature.com/articles/s42...

PhD Application and Admission

Open PhD position! Do you want to work with the human #archaeome and understand the potential effect on the #immune system? Please check the call, including another exciting opening of @cdiener.com on #microbiome research www.medunigraz.at/doktoratsstu... #microbiomesky #archaeasky #microsky

New preprint from our lab!
Story started long ago that took many years in the making.

Great collaboration with @archaellum.bsky.social & @tunglejic.bsky.social groups.

Generously funded by BBSRC @ukri.org & @leverhulme.bsky.social

How do #archaea segregate their chromosome?
#microsky #archaeasky

Communication between DNA polymerases and Replication Protein A within the archaeal replisome Nature Communications - The single stranded DNA binding protein RPA plays a pivotal role in DNA replication. The archaeal RPA hosts a WH domain that interacts with the DNA primase and the...

A new year, a new social network and a new article in @naturecomms.bsky.social ! It unveils how archaeal RPA orchestrates the recruitment of key players in 🧬 replication primase and polD through its WH domain, with structures of both complexes!!
rdcu.be/d6GAY