Craig MacLean

Diverse and abundant phages exploit conjugative plasmids - Nature Communications Some phages use plasmid-encoded conjugation proteins as receptors to infect their bacterial hosts, making their host range dependent on horizontal transfer of the plasmid. Here, the authors present a method for identification of new plasmid-dependent phages, and find that they are common and abundant in wastewater and their genetic diversity is largely unexplored.

This is first paper from a new line of research in my lab, with more to come soon. If interested in PDPs I highly recommend this @baym.lol paper www.nature.com/articles/s41... and this classic from Matti Jalasvuori royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Our key finding is that complex trade-offs between conjugative ability and PDP resistance shape the response of the RP4 plasmid to the PRD1 phage. The mutations that drive PRD1 adaptation in the lab are common in IncP plasmids, suggesting that PDBs impose an important constraint on plasmid transfer

Trade-offs between phage resistance and conjugative ability shape the ecological and evolutionary response of a multidrug resistance plasmid to plasmid-dependent phage Phage therapy is a promising alternative to antibiotics to treat multidrug resistant infections. Plasmid dependent phages (PDPs) are particularly attractive as therapeutics because they can both kill ...

New pre-print www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Plasmid-dependent phage (PDPs) are ubiquitous, but the selective pressures that they impose on plasmids are not well understood. Project led by Daniel Cazares in collaboration with @brockhurstlab.bsky.social!
#phagesky#microsky

VOM-UK Conferences - NU-OMICS Viruses of Microbes UK (VoM-UK) Conference The Virus of Microbes UK (VoM-UK) Conference is hosted by Microbiome Excellence Peak of Excellence at Northumbria University. This two-day conference takes place annually at the end of January/beginning of February and is a chance for researchers to gather and share their knowledge. The VoM-UK conference is designed to […]

hosting.northumbria.ac.uk/nu-omics/vom...

#phagesky #phage #microsky

Come and join us for Viruses of Microbes UK 2026 at @northumbriauni.bsky.social ! Fantastic chance for ECRs to showcase their work 🙂

Professor or Associate professor (Tenure Track/Full) in Microbial Genetics of Health - Turun yliopisto - Työpaikat - Duunitori Avoin työpaikka: Professor or Associate professor (Tenure Track/Full) in Microbial Genetics of Health - Turun yliopisto, Turku. Duunitorilla lisäksi yli 30 000 muuta avointa työpaikkaa. Lue lisää nyt!

Interesting job opportunity:
duunitori.fi/tyopaikat/ty...

Now published in @natcomms.nature.com 🎉

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

With Gillian Rodger, @nstoesser.bsky.social, @samlipworth.bsky.social, @stat-sarah.bsky.social, and many others!

Evolutionary rescue accelerates competitive exclusion in a parasite community Environmental stress drives biodiversity loss by altering competitive hierarchies and pushing taxa towards extinction. Parasites and their communities are particularly vulnerable to stress due to envi...

Builds on pre-print posted earlier this week and gratuitously reposted here

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#Phagesky

New pre-print
Competition between phage constrains adaptation to thermal fluctuating temperatures.
More work led by Sam Greenrod in collaboration with @kayla-king.bsky.social lab.
#Phagesky#Microsky

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

High-accuracy SNV calling for bacterial isolates using deep learning with AccuSNV Accurate detection of mutations within bacterial species is critical for fundamental studies of microbial evolution, reconstructing transmission events, and identifying antimicrobial resistance mutati...

Precisely calling mutations across hundreds of bacterial isolates has been hard, requiring manual filtering and expertise.

Until now, using AccuSNV.

Herui Liao trained an ML model based on our previous meticulously called SNVs.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

#phagesky

Most interesting result: thermosensitive phage (14-1) adapts to high temperature so quickly that it displaces dominant thermotolerant competitor (Luz-19).

Interestingly, DNA ligase mutations involved in adaptation both heat and competitors. Can any phage afficionados explain why?

Evolutionary rescue accelerates competitive exclusion in a parasite community Environmental stress drives biodiversity loss by altering competitive hierarchies and pushing taxa towards extinction. Parasites and their communities are particularly vulnerable to stress due to envi...

New pre-print: Eco-evolutionary responses of phage to different thermal regimes.

Great work led by Sam Greenrod and fun collaboration with Kayla King's lab.
1/2

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

Delighted to see our paper studying the evolution of plasmids over the last 100 years, now out! Years of work by Adrian Cazares, also Nick Thomson @sangerinstitute.bsky.social - this version much improved over the preprint. Final version should be open access, apols.
Thread 1/n

Recent paper from the lab studying predictors of phage cocktail efficacy against complex clinical Pseudomonas populations

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10....

Led by Rosanna Wright with extraordinary MSc (PhD) student Maisie Czernuska

Congrats Siobhán - well deserved promotion and I am glad to see that you are enjoying the moment

Thanks Rachel!

Thanks Zam!

Thanks Sonja

New ERC funded computational postdoc position in my lab! We are looking for someone who will study the genomics of bacterial evolution using samples from experimental evolution and clinical trials. Lots of opportunities for interesting and fun collaboration!
my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

Congratulations!

Looking for a new approach to studying or eliminating phages? Check out our study introducing anti-phage ASOs (antisense oligos) out in @Nature today. nature.com/articles/s4158…

AI mirrors experimental science to uncover a mechanism of gene transfer crucial to bacterial evolution By solving a previously unsolved biological question, the AI co-scientist predicted a complex mechanism of gene transfer and generated hypotheses that opened new research directions, illustrating AI's...

Our second paper with @tcostalab.bsky.social and GoogleDeepMind
reports our experience with Google’s co-scientist: remarkably, the AI independently recapitulated our experimental discovery on cf-PICIs, showcasing AI’s potential to accelerate biology.
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Chimeric infective particles expand species boundaries in phage-inducible chromosomal island mobilization Capsid-forming PICIs (cf-PICIs) produce their own capsids and exploit phage tails from unrelated species to transfer their DNA across bacterial hosts. This tail piracy enables broad dissemination and ...

Thrilled to share our two latest papers with the @tcostalab.bsky.social
lab! In the first, we uncover a new mechanism of satellite transfer: cf-PICIs hijack tails from diverse phages to spread across species.
@imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Nice video abstract!

This looks like a must read …

We are also hiring a 4-year postdoc to study the dynamics and evolution of mobile genetic elements in the C-fixing Icelandic host-spring microbiomes

Join our exciting multidisciplinary team funded by @ukri.org BBSRC sLoLa

www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

This project is a team effort led by Weronika Slesak and the start of a new line of research in my group! Hopefully this will be a good summer read if you are looking for a short paper with a sense of foreboding.

Plasmids link antibiotic resistance genes and phage defense systems in E. coli Phage therapy has been proposed as an alternative to antibiotics to treat resistant infections. However, we have a limited understanding of how antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) associate with bacter...

New pre-print from my lab!
Plasmids link antibiotic resistance and phage defense.

E.coli plasmids are hotspots for both antibiotic resistance and phage defense. Phage therapy has the potential to accidentally select for antibiotic resistance!!!
#microsky#AMR#phage

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

Universal rules govern plasmid copy number - Nature Communications Plasmids exhibit a broad range of sizes and copies per cell, and these two parameters appear to be negatively correlated. Here, Ramiro-Martínez et al. analyse the copy number of thousands of diverse b...

🚨🚨New paper out in @natcomms.nature.com!!

Come for the first large-scale analysis of plasmid copy number across species,
stay for one of the most intriguing results of my lab: universal scaling laws in plasmid biology! 📈🧬

👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thanks and an interesting analogy