Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫

We thank this our institutions for supporting this 🇦🇷🇦🇺 collaboration! Thanks @unsamoficial.bsky.social @muche-macquarie.bsky.social
And the many PhD Students and Posdocs implicated!

Our work establishes SCRaMbLE as a powerful bacterial genome engineering platform, opening new paths to study genome organization, evolution, and strain optimization.

Unexpectedly, some rearranged strains grew faster than the parental strain! These results reveal a striking phenotypic robustness to genome organization changes and support the idea that genome rearrangements can drive phenogenetic drift in bacteria.

After inducing rearrangements and selecting for fast growth, we found dramatically reconfigured genomes with stable physiology despite altered gene order. This technique enabled on‑demand, large‑scale genome rearrangements—inversions, duplications, and translocations across megabases.

We placed 14 loxPsym sites to enable inversions, duplications, and translocations while preserving near‑wild‑type fitness before rearrangement. Including essential genes allowed avoiding deletions.

Creating bacterial genomic diversity through large-scale reconfigurations reveals phenotype robustness to organizational genome change The ability to generate genomic diversity expands opportunities for understanding and engineering biology. Here, we demonstrate on-demand generation of diversity in bacterial genome configurations and...

After 4 years of joint effort of my Lab and Dr. Llorente Team we took for first time SCRaMbLE to a bacterial system! This allowed us to massively reordered the main chromosome of Vibrio natriegens!

biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Here's a 🧵

Materials-Based spatiotemporal analysis of microbial responses to glyphosate in Winogradsky columns Glyphosate, the active ingredient in many broad-spectrum herbicides, is extensively used in agriculture but has come under increasing scrutiny due to …

Old tools for new problems: how to get glyphosate resistant/degrading bacteria using Winogradsky columns...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Pioneer of bacterial genetics: the legacy of Esther Miriam Lederberg Abstract. Esther Miriam Lederberg's brilliant scientific lifework, from the discovery of phage lambda, bacterial conjugation, and replica plating, provided

Thanks to the authors of this piece. I love reading about the work of inspiring pioneers in bacterial genetics. Crazy amount of discoveries!

Pioneer of bacterial genetics: the legacy of Esther Miriam Lederberg
academic.oup.com/genetics/adv...

Taming wild replicons: evolution and domestication of large extrachromosomal replicons Bacterial genomes often contain extrachromosomal replicons (ERs), ranging from small, mobile plasmids to large, stably inherited elements, such as meg…

Super honored to have contributed to this excellent Reviews article by @val-meve.bsky.social and @amazeld.bsky.social on how extrachromosomal replicons (secondary chromosomes, chromids, megaplasmids) emerge in bacteria! 🦠 🧫

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

Microbiome: First bacteria we meet can keep us out of hospital For the first time, scientists show how our microbiome forms affects the risk of infection.

Nuestros encuentros tempranos con bacterias son cruciales para el desarrollo de nuestro sistema inmunológico, muestra un estudio británico 👇
www.bbc.com/news/article...

Frontiers | An additional replication origin causes cell cycle specific DNA replication fork speed

Great paper on replication dynamics in E. coli with more than one oriC. What would happen if we further add more oriCs??
frontiersin.org/journals/mic...

Congrats Ole Skovgaad for this sound paper!!

YouTube video by Senado Argentina VALERIA LEVY - COMISIÓN DE CIENCIA Y TECNOLOGÍA 04-06-25

La intervención de @VLeviLab ayer, en el Senado. También im-per-di-ble 👇
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgTU...

Here is our newest paper recently published in Plant Communications on "Root hair growth under the control of auxin under low temperature low nutrient environment". Comments and suggestions are more than welcome! Here the pdf www.cell.com/plant-commun... Leaded by Victoria Berdion Gabarain et al.

Gene Location Matters Noteworthy — Bacterial genomes are not a laundry list of genes, but dynamic structures intimately connected with cellular function. As a result, natural selection has a heavy hand in shaping chromosom...

schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2...

(sorry for being late with today's 𝘕𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘺. we are not "up, up and away" because of ascension day, we simply overslept 🤦‍♂️) #MicroSky

🌱 New manuscript out, with a strong taste of RESISTANCE.
🦠 We genetically improved a commercial soybean inoculant to degrade glyphosate.
🧬 A single mutation boosts stress tolerance & herbicide breakdown.
🌿 Positive impact on productivity & environmental health.
📄 Read it: doi.org/10.1016/j.rh...

😍Un equipo de la UBA se ubicó entre los 5 mejores (de más de 100) en el mundial de “satélites enlatados”👇en la final del proyecto CanSat, organizado por la Universidad Nacional de México, con un satélite del tamaño de una lata que ellos mismos diseñaron y fabricaron 👇

Budget cuts do not curb our enthusiasm! Ian lab meeting today on Bradyrhizobium cell physiology! #LabMeetinDay

Escribime por DM. Si querés ver lo que hacemos visítanos en:
asoler1.wixsite.com/iib-geb

Estas en 3-4° año de biotecnología o carreras afines? Estamos buscando un/a estudiante de @unsamoficial.bsky.social para incorporar al laboratorio y presentar a una beca de entrenamiento de la CIC PBA! Te interesa? Vení a trabajar con nosotros!! #UNSAM #Biotecnologia !!

What a huge story!!! Integrons are page resistance genes carriers!!! Not just silent " long term memory" geneyic structures!! Congrats two all the team!!

Certainly a great place for a posdoctoral experience! Highly recommended!!!

Huge story by @celineloot.bsky.social ! The chromosomal integrons are reservoirs of defense systems against Phages!

Mobile integrons encode phage defense systems Integrons are bacterial genetic elements that capture, stockpile, and modulate the expression of genes encoded in integron cassettes. Mobile integrons (MIs) are borne on plasmids, acting as a vehicle ...

🧪
Finally out after peer review, our work showing that "Mobile #Integrons carry Phage Defense Systems" is now published in Science 🎉

Short 🧵
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Submitted! Fingers crossed!!

📢 III Curso Avanzado en Biología Molecular y Biotecnología Vegetal. 5 - 14 Mayo. Presencial, Universidad de Chile. Estudiantes de pregrado, doctorado, post-doc y técnicos. Clases con investigadores de primer nivel, últimas innovaciones en biotecnología vegetal. Empresas líderes en la industria.

I thank my HUGE collaborators: @amazeld.bsky.social @celineloot.bsky.social @val-meve.bsky.social Briardo Llorente at @pasteur.fr and Macquarie University. The funds and institutions supporting the project @unsamoficial.bsky.social CONICET Agencia I+D+i

Hence, evolution maintains RNAP near oriC highlighting the key role gene order with implications in ecological strategies, adaptation, and synthetic genome design. We provide an experimental framework for investigating how genome architecture shapes cellular function.

The rpoB and rpoC genes are part of a large locus, and being the last ORF of the operon. To show that the phenotypes observed were consequence exclusively of RNA polymerase genes genomic location, we disected the locus.

We then added a second copy of the locus to show that the pheno typic effects are mostly due to alteration in replication associated rpoBC dosage reduction.