🎉🍾Excited to share our #Asgardarchaea #odin #cytoskeleton study published in
@embojournal.org Dual FtsZ proteins in Odinarchaeon form distinct filaments shedding light on tubulin/FtsZ evolution. Brilliantly led by @jayantik.bsky.social
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

🌟VAAM Early Career Network Event🌟
📅 Sep 16, 2:30 PM, Zoom ✏️https://t1p.de/jx2sz
🎯"From late Postdoc to early PI: Applications, Funding, Appeals & Alternative Paths"
💡Ready to take the next step? Get practical advice on funding applications, handling setbacks & discovering alternative career paths

Hassan Salem Interview with Hassan Salem, who studies beetles and their microbial partners at the Max Planck Institute for Biology.

Grateful to the folks @CurrentBiology.bsky.social for the fun Q&A!

Come for the beetles, stay for the symbionts — and forgive the basketball detour 🪲🦠🏀

www.cell.com/current-biol...

graphical abstract of the article the extended mobility of plasmids

Here's our new broad review on the extended mobility of plasmids, about all mechanisms driving and limiting their transfer. From conjugation to conduction, phage-plasmids to hitchers, molecular to evolutionary dynamics, ecology to biotech. The state of affairs. 1/9 academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

A Secreted Factor Coordinates Environmental Quality with Bacillus Development Entry into sporulation is governed by the master regulator Spo0A. Spo0A accumulates in its active form, Spo0A-P, as cells enter stationary phase. Prior reports have shown that the acute induction of c...

journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Never figured out what this factor was, but the active fraction had only two peptide hits by mass-spec analysis, corresponding to CwlO and YocH fragments. So b/f observing ProtK inactivated the activity, our best hypothesis was it was a peptidoglycan fragment

👉🏻 so glad to see this work out now ... a masterpiece conceived, led and driven by 👉🏻 Christoph Spahn 👏@michriscopy.bsky.social (🚨 #NewPI) and with great collaborations 🙏 @henriqueslab.bsky.social @seamusholden.bsky.social @gomez-mariscal.bsky.social

There have been a lot of new additions to the starter pack. If you are into any aspects of microbial cell biology or cell biology in general, now’s a great time to follow and engage with the new arrivals 🦋
go.bsky.app/L3L2iFz

Update: David Roberts, postdoc in my lab, tested the GraceBio GeneFrame substitute. A few quirks but extremely promising. Good: B. subtilis cells grew quite happily in overnight time lapse. Growth rate comparison to GeneFrames not done yet but in the works.

Thursday! So #MattersMicrobial Episode 93: Dr. Despoina Mavridou did a live podcast with me at UT-Austin. Hijinks and discussion of AMR and how protein folding can help against this growing threat. @microbe.tv @ASMicrobiology @univpugetsound

youtu.be/nSO2Tv6j1J0?...

🎉Celebrating five Clusters of Excellence!
Congratulations to our Clusters: @cecad.bsky.social for aging research🧬, @ceplas.bsky.social for plant sciences🌱, @econtribute.bsky.social for economics, ML4Q for quantum research⚛️ and 🆕DYNAVERSE for astrophysics🌌

Read more ➡️https://uni.koeln/2AKU3

Congratulations!!

Our group leader Antje Boe­t­ius @maxplanck.de #AWI @marumunibremen.bsky.social @unibremen.bsky.social has been elec­ted a Fel­low of @royalsociety.org one of the highest sci­entific hon­ors in the world! 🤩👏👏👏🥳
#marinescience #WomeninSTEM #Bremen

mpi-bremen.de/en/Antje-Boe...

🎉Doppelerfolg für die #UniMarburg in der Exzellenzstrategie! 🎉 Zwei Cluster zu Klimawandel und menschlicher Wahrnehmung sichern sich Förderung. Marburg beweist Forschungsstärke und Innovationskraft.🚀 @proloewe.bsky.social @synmikro.bsky.social @maxplanck.de @jlugiessen.bsky.social @tuda.bsky.social

Deutschlandkarte der Verteilung der Exzellenzcluster auf Bundesländer und Universitäten.

Die #Exzellenzcluster stehen fest: Heute hat die Exzellenzkommission 70 Projekte zur Förderung ausgewählt. 45 Cluster werden fortgesetzt, 25 neu eingerichtet. Die Förderung beginnt ab 1. Jan. 2026 für 7 Jahre, die Fördersumme beträgt insg. 539 Mio. €/Jahr. Die Liste: www.dfg.de/resource/blo... 1/3

📢 Wir sind stolz und freuen uns, dass unser Exzellenzcluster Microbes-for-Climate (M4C) in der Exzellenzstrategie 2025 ausgewählt wurde! 🌟Wir freuen uns gemeinsam mit @unimarburg.bsky.social auf spannende #Mikrobenforschung - stay tuned ! @unimarburg.bsky.social @maxplanck.de‬ @synmikro.bsky.social

📢 We are proud and delighted that our Microbes for Climate (M4C) Cluster of Excellence has been selected for the 2025 Excellence Strategy! 🌟Together with @unimarburg.bsky.social, we look forward to exciting #microbe research – stay tuned! @unimarburg.bsky.social @maxplanck.de‬ @synmikro.bsky.social

Analysis of gene expression within individual cells reveals spatiotemporal patterns underlying Vibrio cholerae biofilm development Biofilms are bacterial communities that live attached to surfaces and are important for disease development. This study develops imaging technology to probe spatiotemporal patterns of Vibrio cholerae ...

Analysis of gene expression within individual cells reveals spatiotemporal patterns underlying Vibrio cholerae biofilm development

@plosbiology.org from Bonnie Bassler

journals.plos.org/Plosbiology/...

🛠️Toolbox 🛠️ out to modulate gene expression & protein secretion in a predatory bacterium.
📑Preprint from my group below.
Many thanks to L. Mihajlovic @ljmihajlovic.bsky.social, L. Hofacker, F. Lindner, P. Jayakumar & A. Diepold @diepold-lab.bsky.social! #MicroSky #SyntheticBiology #PredatoryBacteria

FlhG Cooperates With the Cell Cycle Regulator GpsB to Confine Peritrichous Flagella in B. subtilis FlhG (orange, with activator helix in green) regulates peritrichous flagellation in Bacillus subtilis by interacting with the C-ring protein FliY (gray, N-terminus in red) and the cell wall regulator....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @synmikro.bsky.social @unimarburg.bsky.social

The Imposter Syndrome 🧵

1. The Attack

🧵5 Top Free Alternatives to BioRender for Scientific Illustrations!

These five websites offer free scientific illustrations for biologists. Great for presentations, research papers and other research communication needs.

Save and share the post!

Bacterial effectors mediate kinase reprogramming through mimicry of conserved eukaryotic motifs | EMBO reports imageimageA virulence protein from diverse bacteria switches the amino acid specificity of the eukaryotic kinase GSK3. This kinase reprogramming depends on several short linear motifs that each appear...

How can a Salmonella effector change the specificity of a host kinase? SteE mediates kinase reprogramming via mimicry of conserved eukaryotic-like motifs- doi.org/10.1038/s443... Great collaboration with @katrinrittinger.bsky.social + big thanks to all authors & congrats to lead PDRA Ioanna Panagi!

Microscopy images using different coloured labels to show a diversity of B-DNA, Z-DNA and G4 complexes in a bacterial biofilm.

There are many types of eDNA in #biofilm matrices - including Z-DNA & G4 complexes that are key for mechanical stability, don't get degraded by DNaseI and can't be seen with typical DNA dyes. Absolutely storming talk from Rikke Meyer at #Biofilms11 #MIcroSky (Image: academic.oup.com/nar/article/...)

Job alert 🦠🧪: We are looking for a postdoc (and PhD candidate!) to join our team at UCLouvain/de Duve institute in Brussels, Belgium. You will work on our ERC Starting Grant project aimed at characterizing cell cycle regulation in S. pneumoniae. More information here: dewachterlab.com/join-us/.

Confocal microscopy of thin vertical sections of biofilms shows gld D expression limited to the top few micrometres, and lldP expression peaking just below.

Next: @laahrs.bsky.social shows his lab's work on spatial organisation of metabolic gene expression in P. aeruginosa macrocolonies. More beautiful images, showing division of metabolic pathways between cells in different biofilm layers #Biofilms11 #MicroSky (Image: journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...)

The nucleoid of rapidly growing Escherichia coli localizes close to the inner membrane and is organized by transcription, translation, and cell geometry - Nature Communications The mechanisms underlying bacterial chromosome configuration are not fully understood. Here, Spahn et al. show that the Escherichia coli nucleoid adopts a condensed, membrane-proximal configuration du...

I forgot to post about this recent paper - exciting work led by @michriscopy.bsky.social showing clearest evidence yet for transertion strongly tethering the bacterial nucleoid to the membrane during fast growth. It was a pleasure to contribute a little 🔬🦠🧫 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We heard Stefan talk about his work on multicellularity in Stenotrophomonas at our conference this January, check out his latest preprint!

📌

Finally in peer-reviewed form: Mapping the ultrastructural topology of the corynebacterial cell surface. @bupbuse.bsky.social @vikramalva.bsky.social

Please also see concurrent beautiful work from @adriasogues.bsky.social and Han Remaut.

Nano tube?

🔬 New pathoblocker is to stop Salmonella infections early on

Possible alternative treatment method for infections with antibiotic-resistant germs.

📖 Study: tinyurl.com/2s3u4hwj

#Pathoblocker #Salmonella #Pathogenicity #AMR @dzif.bsky.social @unituebingen.bsky.social @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social