Ryan Sayegh

Identifying phage proteins that activate the bacterial innate immune system Bacteria have evolved sophisticated antiphage systems that halt phage replication upon detecting specific phage triggers. Identifying phage triggers is crucial to our understanding of immune signaling...

I am delighted to share that my work in the @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social lab is now on bioRxiv! We used a large-scale genetic screen to begin defining the vast landscape of phage proteins that trigger immune signaling in bacteria.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Functional amyloid proteins confer defence against predatory bacteria Nature - Escherichia coli uses curli fibres, oligomers of the functional amyloid CsgA, as a barrier to protect against the predatory bacteria Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus and Myxococcus xanthus in a...

Words cannot describe how excited I am to share the findings from the second half of my postdoc in @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social's lab where we discover that bacteria use functional amyloids to defend themselves from predatory bacteria. rdcu.be/euu5Y. See thread for details on this epic adventure 1/.

Excited to explore what the future holds! Though it may not be an easy time to be in science, my resolve is unshaken thanks to my wonderful scientific community! (3/3)

The past three years have been so intellectually nourishing and I am ecstatic to enter the workforce armed with a diversity of skills and the support of my phenomenal mentors and colleagues! (2/3)

I am delighted to announce that this past spring, I graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder PhD program. My dissertation work was titled "Defense against predatory bacteria" (1/3)

Check out our new story led by @aesully98.bsky.social describing how bacteria turn immune evasion against phage! In collaboration with @benmorehouse.bsky.social lab, we discover that bacteria guard their nucleotide second messenger pool using a nucleotidyltransferase related to Cas10/CRISPR enzymes

A miniature CRISPR-Cas10 enzyme confers immunity by an inverse signaling pathway Microbial and viral co-evolution has created immunity mechanisms involving oligonucleotide signaling that share mechanistic features with human anti-viral systems. In these pathways, including CBASS a...

Preprint alert! ✨ In this project that I co-led with @benadler.bsky.social, we show that a miniature CRISPR-Cas10-like enzyme, mCpol, uses a novel inverse signaling mechanism to prevent the spread of viruses that attempt immune evasion by depleting host cyclic nucleotides.

Check it out:

A minimal CRISPR polymerase produces decoy cyclic nucleotides to detect phage anti-defense proteins Bacteria use antiphage systems to combat phages, their ubiquitous competitors, and evolve new defenses through repeated reshuffling of basic functional units into novel reformulations. A common theme ...

Excited to share that my work from the @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social lab is now on bioRxiv! With @benmorehouse.bsky.social, we discovered that the Panoptes defense system—named after the all-seeing watchman of Hera—uses decoy nucleotides to detect phage anti-defense proteins.

It’s here! Thrilled to be sharing a review article I wrote with @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social exploring the similarities and conservation of immune systems across life rdcu.be/dzSa3

Our review comparing bacterial and eukaryotic immune systems is out now. Check out Hannah’s thread for the highlights!

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

Hi everyone! A quick intro about me in this new virtual space! My name is Ryan Sayegh (pronounced sigh-egg). I use he/they pronouns, and I'm a third-year Ph.D. candidate in the @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social lab interested in host-pathogen interactions in microbes. @ryansayegh98 on the other blue app.