BejaLab

#SymbioSky #MicroSky #ProtistsOnSky
the plot thickens 👇 as we all suspected and feared(?), organellogenesis is not straightforward, but rather, well,... a thicket ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

figure from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-025-02087-4

𝘗𝘴𝘦𝘶𝘥𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘴 fans take note 👇

"𝘗. 𝘢𝘦𝘳𝘶𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘰𝘴𝘢 senses EPS trails using type IV pili and adhesins during biofilm formation"

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#MicroSky

Thanks again for all your votes on #ctenophore orientation.

Although Option 2 won in a landslide, the mouth is actually on “top” in this photo, next to option 1.

These results strongly support my hypothesis— or more properly — fail to disprove my expectations.

A spherical comb jelly floating against a dark background, with its tentacles deployed, tentilla (side branches) fanned out. There is a number 1 above the body and number 2 below the body. Photo by S. Haddock taken around 1990.

For CTENOPHORE DAY, a little survey:
Which end of this fishing Pleurobrachia is the mouth on? Please just "vote" in the comments — no definitive answers. 🦑🧪🌊

P.S. this is one of my earliest #ctenophore photos, shot on film in a home-built kreisel.

P.P.S. Legit data-gathering for a future paper.

Pretty excited to share our new preprint!
Non-photosynthetic Plastid Replacement by a Primary Plastid in the Making
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

SAR11 ecotypes across ocean basins change with depth due to changes in light and oxygen academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc... #jcampubs 🌊

Planetary microbiology: microbes, planets, and the search for life | Applied and Environmental Microbiology Life on Earth has existed for nearly 4 billion years, and for most of that time, it was microbial (1). The diverse world we see around us today owes its entire existence to a few foundational events c...

Planetary microbiology explores how ancient microbial innovations reshaped our planet and continue to guide our search for life on Mars, Europa, and across the cosmos.

New editorial from the lab: journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... @asm.org

Just returning from a fantastic symposium celebrating my former postdoc mentor, Julia Vorholt, on receiving the Novonesis Biotechnology Prize! Huge congratulations to Julia — and to the Novo Nordisk Foundation on an outstanding choice!

Very well deserved prize for Prof. Vorholt, one of my favorite productive and humble scientists! and what a great meating it was!

Glad to share a collaboration with Yicen Lin's group at Kunming University of Science and Technology published in ISME Journal

Synergistic biodegradation of polyethylene by experimentally evolved bacterial biofilms
academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

#MicrobiomeEcology at #LeidenBiology

Dérive test de Tara Polar Station : 4 semaines dans la banquise En juin 2025, Tara Polar Station a quitté Lorient pour rejoindre le grand Nord. Durant 4 semaines, elle a effectué une première courte dérive test au cœur de la banquise. Conçue comme une station pola...

#Dérive test : marins, chercheurs et artiste vivent au rythme des #glaciers. Nuits agitées, #banquise qui se fracture, paysages qui se réinventent à chaque réveil. Plongez dans leurs récits ➡️polaire.https://fondationtaraocean.org/polaire/derive-test-banquise-tara-polar-station/

Clues to why the weight-loss condition cachexia arises when cancer occurs Analyses of RNA expression reveal molecules underpinning the cancer-associated process of skeletal-muscle wasting, a condition called cachexia.

Analyses of RNA expression reveal molecules underpinning the cancer-associated process of skeletal-muscle wasting

go.nature.com/4gZI2Kh

Gut microbiota–mediated lipid accumulation as a driver of evolutionary adaptation to blue light toxicity in Drosophila - Communications Biology Laboratory selection for tolerance to blue light toxicity in Drosophila revealed that gut microbiota–mediated obesity, marked by midgut elongation and increased beneficial bacteria, is a key evolutionary adaptation.

Gut microbiota–mediated lipid accumulation as a driver of evolutionary adaptation to blue light toxicity in Drosophila www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Congratulations @kranzuschlab.bsky.social ! So well deserved. And a great reason to re-read the many many incredible papers that completely changed our perspective on bacterial and eukaryotic immunity.

Oceanic photosynthesis is directly affected by cyanophage NblA proteins www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Phage lysis protein LysM acts as a wedge to block MurJ conformational changes Structural analysis reveals how a phage protein blocks a lipid II flippase to prevent bacterial cell wall synthesis.

Phage lysis protein LysM acts as a wedge to block MurJ conformational changes | Science Advances https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.ady8083?af=R

Two group leader positions available in the broader areas of RNA science, RNA technologies, and RNA medicine. Attractive packages and a great environment. Come and join us at Helmholtz RNA Würzburg, Bavaria.

The Viral AlphaFold Database of monomers and homodimers reveals conserved protein folds in viruses of bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes VAD is a Viral AlphaFold Database of protein monomers and homodimers from viruses infecting hosts across the tree of life.

Viral AlphaFold Database (VAD) is live in Science Advances

~27,000 predicted viral protein monomers & homodimers

Conserved folds across bacteria, archaea & eukaryotic viruses

New toxin–antitoxin system KreTA uncovered

Vast “functional darkness” remains uncharted

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A graphic advertising phage ecology and evolution research at the University of South Carolina, showing a central image of a tide pool flanked by a photo of an agar plate containing diverse microbes and a TEM image of a virus particle.

Very happy to share that I will be starting as an Assistant Professor in the department of Biological Sciences at the University of South Carolina in January! My group will be working on environmental phage ecology and evolution, and I am recruiting for the upcoming year (more info below).

This is hilarious for Nobel week.
The headstones of two late Yale chemists who shared the department at the same period.
One has his CV written on the headstones
The other: Nobel Laureate etc.

And the funny story about Onsager's son adding "* ETC" after many years:
freakonomics.com/2009/09/etc-...

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...

Light-Powered Transport of Organic Anions by Microbial Rhodopsins Microbial rhodopsins are photoactive membrane proteins known for transporting small inorganic ions such as H+, Cl–, and Na+. Their compact structure─comprising seven transmembrane helices─has long bee...

Light-Powered Transport of Organic Anions by Microbial Rhodopsins pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....

@cyanoney.bsky.social

How to upgrade stolen organelles into permanent plastids: A comparative transcriptomic perspective | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1... #protistsonsky

In vivo directed evolution of an ultrafast Rubisco from a semianaerobic environment imparts oxygen resistance | PNAS Carbon dioxide (CO2) assimilation by the enzyme Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate Carboxylase/Oxygenase (Rubisco) underpins biomass accumulation in photosy...

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

YouTube video by MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute) Throwback to one of our earliest encounters with a deep-sea gulper eel

This whiptail gulper eel (Saccopharynx lavenbergi) was spotted 880 meters deep in Monterey Canyon back in 1993—one of only 18 sightings in nearly 40 years! 📹️😍 With its massive mouth and glowing tail, this deep-sea icon even inspired MBARI’s logo. Watch here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwD...

A functional cyanophage thioredoxin increases competitive phage fitness Thioredoxins are ubiquitous redox proteins that are found in all domains of life. These conserved proteins are also found in many phages, including marine cyanophages that infect the ecologically important marine cyanobacteria. However, their role in phage infection is not known. Cyanophages also carry many small genes lacking homology to known functional domains. Whether these have a functional role or not remains unknown. Here, we explore the distribution and role of a cyanophage thioredoxin (trxA), and that of a small gene directly downstream of it (g26), in phage infection. For this we used the T7-like cyanophage, Syn5, which infects an open-ocean marine Synechococcus strain, WH8109. We found that thioredoxin genes are common in phage genomes, including in cyanophages. The g26 gene, however, is restricted in it distribution to the cyanophages. The cyanophage thioredoxin is catalytically active and it increases phage DNA replication, progeny production and competitive fitness. It also negatively impacts host growth. The g26 gene product is translationally coupled to, and thus dependent on, translation of the thioredoxin gene. This gene itself significantly increases phage virulence and fitness, yet reduces burst size. Our findings demonstrate that cyanophage thioredoxins impact phage fitness and infection physiology and that small viral genes with no homology to known genes can play an important role in the infection process. These findings provide insights into the importance of unusual genes in phage genomes and show that they are likely to play an important role in the interactions between abundant cyanobacteria and cyanophages in ocean ecosystems. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.

A functional cyanophage thioredoxin increases competitive phage fitness | bioRxiv https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.05.680603v1

The Biology, Microclimate, and Geology of a Distinctive Ecosystem Within the Sandstone of Hyper-Arid Timna Valley, Israel enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Author Correction: Crystal structure of heliorhodopsin www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Elemental allocation to molecular drivers of biogeochemistry in the Southern Ocean www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...