Hermoine Venter

True story.

Today is my first day joining @ellinoralseth.bsky.social in the Alseth lab! Excited to get started working with Acinetobacter baumanii and its phage Mystique🦠🧪🤓
#PhageSky

It’s not me, it’s you: Anti-phage nuclease specificity inside a bacterium

Very timely review; thank Alex Hong and @jbdsf.bsky.social for putting this together
journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

📣new preprint from the phagefoundry.org team 🎉 Jessica Trinh and Catherine Mageeney (Sandia National Laboratories)!!

Systematic analysis of prophages from ~1000 Acinetobacter baumannii isolates, induction & screening. We found this 😎 looking phage with bunch of 💍💍

How do bacterial pangenomes evolve, what controls their dynamics, why do they exist?
Fitting a mechanistic model to 450 species from allthebacteria.org suggesting fast vs slow gene exchange (i.e. amount of MGEs) is a major differentiating factor, correlated with phylogeny rather than lifestyle

The paradox of immune systems conservation between prokaryotes and eukaryotes - Nature Reviews Microbiology The widespread prokaryotic immune systems, in particular restriction–modification, CRISPR–Cas and defensive toxin–antitoxin systems, are absent in eukaryotes, whereas relatively rare ones, such as Arg...

Aude Bernheim @audeber.bsky.social and Eugene Koonin discuss one of most interesting questions in the field connecting bacterial and animal immunity!

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

After many challenges along the way, I am happy to say our work on evading RM systems to transform Staphylococcus haemolyticus is now out as a preprint! 🦠
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
#microsky

Staphylococcus haemolyticus Population Genomics Provides Insights into Pathogenicity and Commensalism Staphylococcus haemolyticus is a common commensal bacterium but also an opportunistic pathogen, frequently implicated in bacteraemia and sepsis in preterm neonates and immunocompromised patients. Desp...

Heroic work by @bluebirdsjunk.bsky.social in pulling this mammoth study together

'Staphylococcus haemolyticus Population Genomics Provides Insights into Pathogenicity and Commensalism'

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

An updated evolutionary classification of CRISPR–Cas systems including rare variants - Nature Microbiology An exploration of previously undescribed variants from the long tail of the CRISPR–Cas distribution.

Out now!

An updated evolutionary classification of CRISPR–Cas systems including rare variants

#microsky

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

Acinetobacter phages use distinct strategies to breach the capsule barrier Author summary Acinetobacter baumannii causes life-threatening and often antibiotic-resistant infections thereby posing a global threat. Accordingly, there is an urgent need for alternative treatments...

I said I will never work on phages, but having @micheleleroux.bsky.social next door made me change my mind. Here is Alexis's new paper showing how different phages deal with the capsular barrier to infect Acinetobacter! A great collaboration between our labs!
journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

Phages with a broad host range are common across ecosystems - Nature Microbiology Proximity-ligation-based sequencing from 111 samples and 5 environments reveals that a substantial proportion of phages infect multiple species.

You like phages ? In this publication, we use metaHiC and our new version of the MetaTOR pipeline to challenge the traditional view of phages with a narrow host range.
@rkoszul.bsky.social @natmicrobiol.nature.com @cnrs.fr @institutpasteur.bsky.social

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

Experimental evolution in an era of molecular manipulation - Nature Reviews Genetics In this Review, Ascensao and Desai discuss how methodological advances in genotype and phenotype manipulation are transforming experimental evolution approaches and providing new insights into the und...

Experimental evolution in an era of molecular manipulation
#ExperimentalEvolution #evolution #evoSky

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

Imidazole propionate is a driver and therapeutic target in atherosclerosis - Nature Imidazole propionate produced by gut microbiota is associated with atherosclerosis in mouse models and in humans, and causes the development of atherosclerosis through activation of the imidazoline-1 ...

💥 A gut microbe metabolite that drives #atherosclerosis?
Yes—Imidazole propionate (ImP) triggers vascular inflammation without changing cholesterol.
🧪 We show the pathway—and how to block it.
nature.com/articles/s41... #OpenAccess at
@Nature
@CNIC_CARDIO
#CVD #immunosky #cardiosky #microbiomesky

Finally made the jump to @bsky.app! Hello World!🤓

Have a close-up of Staphylococcus haemolyticus to celebrate 🥳🔬