Ben Morehouse

What is the best strategy to win any contest?

Eliminate your opponents of course.

Recently, my friend @fernpizza.bsky.social showed how plasmids compete intracellularly (check out his paper published in Science today!). With @baym.lol, we now know they can fight.

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

Filament formation and NAD processing by noncanonical human FAM118 sirtuins Nature Structural & Molecular Biology - Baretić and Missoury et al. identify vertebrate proteins FAM118B and FAM118A as sirtuins similar to bacterial antiphage enzymes and show that...

Very happy to share our collaborative project on FAM118 proteins - noncanonical sirtuins that form filaments and process NAD in human and other vertebrate cells.

A human homolog of SIR2 antiphage proteins mediates immunity via the Toll-like receptor pathway Key actors of mammalian immunity originated from bacterial antiphage systems. The full extent of immune system conservation between bacteria and eukaryotes is unknown. Here, we show that the silent in...

I'd also like to highlight a recent publication by @audeber.bsky.social, @enzopoirier.bsky.social, and colleagues showing FAM118B, which they term "SIRal", is essential for innate immune response in mammalian cellular models; they also have great phylogenetic analysis and insights into biochemistry.

Proteome-wide in silico screening for human protein-protein interactions Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) drive virtually all biological processes, yet most PPIs have not been identified and even more remain structurally unresolved. We developed a two-step computational...

Thrilled to share that the final piece of my PhD work is now on bioRxiv! biorxiv.org/content/10.1... With support from @nvidia and the @NSF, we used AlphaFold to screen 1.6M+ protein pairs, revealing thousands of potential novel PPIs. All data can be viewed at predictomes.org/hp

Bacteria can sense when a virus starts shredding their genome — by detecting methylated mononucleotides.
Here’s the story of how we discovered the Metis defense system 👇
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Preprint: Bacteria sense virus-induced genome degradation via methylated mononucleotides

tinyurl.com/ch3damp

We show how molecular byproducts released during virus-induced cell exploitation are used as signals to trigger host immunity

Revealed by the amazing Ilya Osterman. See his thread below👇

Labs in bacterial immunity

Hi everyone, a few years ago, we started a list of labs studying bacterial immunty for students, editors, conference organizers... (currently n=79).

Update time ! Send me a message to 1) add your lab or others 2) Correct info
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
#Phagesky #Microsky

Human non-canonical inflammasomes activate CASP3 to limit intracellular Salmonella replication in macrophages. Inflammasomes are multiprotein signaling platforms that activate inflammatory caspases to induce pyroptosis. In humans, canonical inflammasomes activate CASP1, which cleaves the pore-forming protein g...

Check out our latest work led by two talented postdocs, Madhura @mkulkarni.bsky.social and Chris. We find that CASP4/5 can cleave and activate CASP3/7, acting as initiators of both pyroptosis and apoptosis. Notably, both are needed for full pathogen defense!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our new preprint is out 🥳🥳🥳

Henipaviruses, like Nipah and Hendra, package their genomes inside helical shells built by thousands of nucleoproteins. These nucleocapsids are essential to protect the viral RNA, but how do they ever let the polymerase in to read the sequence?

👇

Wilkinson Lab We discover and study reverse transcriptases

The Wilkinson Lab is open for science! @mskcancercenter.bsky.social

🧬We'll be finding funky new RNA biology, mainly by looking at reverse transcriptases (i.e. the Best Enzymes In The World)🧬

annnd: I'm hiring - come join! Especially postdocs and PhD students - please get in touch (NYC is great)

Antiviral Defence is a Conserved Function of Diverse DNA Glycosylases Bacteria are frequently attacked by viruses, known as phages, and rely on diverse defence systems like restriction endonucleases and CRISPR-Cas to survive. While phages can evade these defences by cov...

Excited to share: DNA glycosylases are diverse antiviral effectors. They recognize phage base modifications and initiate genome destruction. A structure‑guided approach made the scope of this discovery possible! 🧪 #phagesky doi.org/10.1101/2025... #phage #microbiology

Phage SSB detection by retron Eco8 msDNA unleashes nuclease-mediated immunity The cryo-EM structure of the retron Eco8 system reveals an autoinhibited 4:4:4 complex of RT, msDNA, and OLD nuclease. Phage SSB binding to msdDNA unleashes non-specific nuclease activity to restrict ...

I’m thrilled to share our Retron Eco8 paper published in Molecular Cell today. Thanks all Fu lab members and our collaborators.
👉Phage SSB detection by retron Eco8 msDNA unleashes nuclease-mediated immunity. www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Kim Lab at UC Irvine Visit the post for more.

The Kim Lab (sskimlab.org) at UC Irvine is recruiting motivated grad students interested in uncovering how transcriptional regulators direct cell fates. We accept students through the CMB (cmb.uci.edu) and MCSB (ccbs.uci.edu/education/mcsb/) PhD programs. Please share with prospective grad students!

Reading the microbial warfare literature

We are searching for a lab manager!
If you are detailed oriented, like southern california, HSV-1, sequencing and microscopy, please get in touch :)

Lab’s first paper is out!! We show the first structures of #Asgard #chromatin by #cryo-EM 🧬❄️
Asgard histones form closed and open hypernucleosomes. Closed are conserved across #Archaea, while open resemble eukaryotic H3–H4 octasomes and are Asgard-specific. More here: www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Assistant Professor in Structural Biology and Biochemistry, Department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry University of California, Irvine is hiring. Apply now!

Our home department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry at UC Irvine is looking to hire a new tenure-track assistant professor in the broad area of structural biology. Come be our colleague! recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF09887

Please apply and/or share this post.

Excited to share some new work from the lab, led by @shelbyeandersen.bsky.social where we developed a method and computational pipeline to identify antiphage defenses across diverse bacterial phyla.

I'm hiring a lab technician to help me explore some exciting new questions about virus-host interactions! Biochemistry and/or mammalian cell culture experience is desired.

Apply to work with us! careerspub.universityofcalifornia.edu/psc/ucm/EMPL...

The multifaceted roles of NAD+ in bacterial immunity In this review, Vaysset and Bernheim examine how nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) is a key player in diverse and widespread bacterial antiphage defense systems and phage counterdefense. The au...

Many antiphage systems use NAD+, in many ways.
@hugovaysset.bsky.social reviewed them all!

Read to know more about all their molecular mechanisms, how phages counteract them, their distribution in bacteria and their conservation in eukaryotic immunity!
www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Antiviral reverse transcriptases reveal the evolutionary origin of telomerase Defense-associated reverse transcriptases (DRTs) employ diverse and distinctive mechanisms of cDNA synthesis to protect bacteria against viral infection. However, much of DRT family diversity remains ...

1/10 Genome maintenance by telomerase is a fundamental process in nearly all eukaryotes. But where does it come from?

Today, we report the discovery of telomerase homologs in a family of antiviral RTs, revealing an unexpected evolutionary origin in bacteria.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Genome maintenance by telomerase is a fundamental process in nearly all eukaryotes. But where does it come from?

Today, we report the discovery of telomerase homologs in a family of antiviral reverse transcriptases, revealing an unexpected evolutionary origin in bacteria.

doi.org/10.1101/2025...

My home department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry at UC Irvine is looking to hire a new tenure-track assistant professor in the broad area of structural biology. Come be my colleague! recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF09887

Perfect timing in the field for a beautiful review on NAD+ in bacterial immunity by @hugovaysset.bsky.social and @audeber.bsky.social @cp-molcell.bsky.social

#MicroSky

www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

If this sounds like you or someone you know, please consider applying or sharing the link for the application! I am happy to answer any questions.

My home department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry at UC Irvine is looking to hire a new tenure-track assistant professor in the broad area of structural biology. Come be my colleague! recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF09887

Ecological constraints foster both extreme viral-host lineage stability and mobile element diversity in a marine community Phages are typically viewed as very rapidly evolving biological entities. Little is known, however, about whether and how phages can establish long-term genetic stability. We addressed this eco-evolut...

Phages evolve fast, or do they?
In oysters, some stay identical for years.
With >1,200 phages & 600 Vibrio genomes, we reveal long-term stability and new mobile elements.
Proud of this collaborative work across our teams (Roscoff-UdeM and @epcrocha.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

Illustration depicting a bacterium under assault by phage. The bacterium “sees” phage immune evasion proteins and protects itself using a newly described antiphage system called Panoptes, named for the many-eyed mythical giant Argus Panoptes. Credit: Clair Huffine Insight Illustrations LLC

Our work on the Panoptes antiphage system is published! Here we find that Panoptes "watches" the cytosol for phage immune evasion proteins–captured in this illustration by Clair Huffine of Insight Illustrations. A beautiful example of the effector triggered immunity paradigm.

The Panoptes system uses decoy cyclic nucleotides to defend against phage - Nature The Panoptes antiphage system defends bacteria by detecting phage-encoded counter-defences that sequester cyclic nucleotide signals, triggering membrane disruption and highlighting a broader strategy of sensing immune evasion through second-messenger surveillance.

A little late to the Panoptes party, but I’m delighted to share that our paper is published! 👁️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...