Anna Karnkowska

Bringing the uncultivated microbial majority of freshwater ecosystems into culture - Nature Communications A large fraction of aquatic bacteria remains uncultured. Here, the authors cultivated 627 strains of abundant freshwater bacteria from 14 European lakes, thus generating a collection that includes many previously uncultured, oligotrophic bacteria that may serve as model organisms.

⚠️New paper ➡️ isolating >600 freshwater microbes using dilution-to-extinction and low-nutrient, lake-mimicking media.

🤯Expands cultured diversity to ~70 % of detected genera and enables physiological studies of streamlined oligotrophs.

🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#protistsonsky

The cellular mechanics of symbiosis: sensing friend from foe

Dear all, registration for the upcoming EMBO/EMBL Symposium on "the cellular mechanics of symbiosis" is now OPEN 🤩 ! Feel free to register ! www.embl.org/about/info/c...
#EESSymbiosis #ProtistsOnSky #SymbioSky
@hassansalem.bsky.social @berasymbionts.bsky.social @embl.org

The cellular mechanics of symbiosis: sensing friend from foe

🚨 Save the date! Thrilled to be co-organizing the next iteration of the @embl.org Symposium on the Cellular Mechanics of Symbiosis (📅 March 17-20), w/ @floravincent.bsky.social, @hassansalem.bsky.social & Tom Richards.
www.embl.org/about/info/c...
#EESSymbiosis #Symbiosis #SymbioSky #MicroSky 🦠

Apply now to the Workshop on Genomics 2026, which will take place 11-24 January, in the beautiful town of Český Krumlov, Czechia. Deadline: 20th of October, but applicants will be informed on a rolling basis. Spread the word among colleagues! 🙆🏽‍♀️ evomics.org/apply-worksh... #evomics2026

How do microbes become permanent partners? 🌊🔬🦠 Check out our new study published in Current Biology showing how cyanobacterial genomes evolve step-by-step into endosymbionts of diatoms. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
@currentbiology.bsky.social @mehrshmali.bsky.social

FANTASIA leverages language models to decode the functional dark proteome across the animal tree of life Communications Biology - FANTASIA, a protein language model-based tool, enables large-scale functional annotation across ~1000 animal proteomes, revealing novel gene functions in both model and...

FANTASIA's paper is finally out! Check it out if you're interested in alternative methods to homology for functional annotation in nonmodel organisms 🦐🐙🪱🧬🐝🪲
@gemmaeling.bsky.social @amrojasm.bsky.social @ibe-barcelona.bsky.social @cabd-upo-csic.bsky.social
@csic.es www.nature.com/articles/s42...

First stop of our @4euplusalliance.bsky.social project: Poland! 🐌🦆
We met with @ankarn.bsky.social (thank you! 🙏🏻) to exchange knowledge on bird schistosomes and swimmer's itch and, mainly, share our experience with water filtration and #eDNA detection. 🧬

The 11th Polish Evolutionary Conference is coming to Warsaw! Join us to share your research and connect with others in the field. Check out a fantastic lineup of invited speakers!

🗓️ Abstract submission deadline extended to May 31!

More info & registration 👉 pec2025.biol.uw.edu.pl

#PEC2025

📢 Deadline extended to May 5!
Join our #ESEB2025 symposium on symbioses in microbial eukaryotes - from the origin of organelles to their roles in ecosystem functioning. Share your work and meet our great speakers @cstairs.bsky.social & @benkinsjenkins.bsky.social

#ESEB25 #Symbiosis #ProtistOnSky

🚨 Just under two weeks left to submit your abstract for ESEB2025 - don’t miss the chance to be part of the Symposium on the Evolution of Symbiosis and Interactions in Microbial Eukaryotes 🦠🔬

📅 Abstract deadline: April 25, 2025
🔗 More: eseb2025.com/list-of-symposia
#ESEB25 #Symbiosis #ProtistOnSky

Thank you to everyone who joined us at the University of Warsaw #DOKO event yesterday! It was wonderful to meet so many people keen to learn more about UW, its courses, and our student organisations 🧪🦴🦠🔬

Happy to share that the ESEB2025 Congress of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology @eseb2025.bsky.social will feature our symposium on the Evolution of Symbiosis and Interactions in Microbial Eukaryotes! 🦠🔬

More info: eseb2025.com/list-of-symp...

#ESEB2025 #Symbiosis #ProtistOnSky

Stoked about this manuscript, many years in the making. We present an original resource of ~700 highly curated plastid MAGs of marine pelagic algae. Among these we found a novel deep branching group of plastid genomes; we informally call them leptophytes
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Associate Professor in Zoology (268410) | University of Oslo Job title: Associate Professor in Zoology (268410), Employer: University of Oslo, Deadline: Sunday, February 23, 2025

Position as an Associate Professor in Zoology at the Natural History Museum, University of Oslo
www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

I have a two year postdoc position in freshwater biodiversity and extreme evens open in my lab. Please share and apply!

www.slu.se/en/about-slu...

Funding - International Society of Protistologists Student support, seed money, and more. Got a tip for a program that funds protist research? Contact the Vice President. Society funding: The Holz-Conner Travel Fund provides funding for travel […]

International Society of Protistologists is funding two symposia at the 16th International Congress of Protistology in Seoul, South Korea. Proposals are due 30 January 2025
#protist #protistsonsky
protistologists.org/programs/fun...

🎄✨ Warmest Christmas wishes to our dear friends and collaborators! Wesołych Świąt! 🎅🎁✨
Here’s a festive glimpse from our lab's Christmas event - celebrating the season together. Wishing you joy and success in the coming year! 🌟

figure from the paper based on an evolutionary tree of a specific group of microbes

New #ISEPpapers! Reduced plastid genomes of colorless facultative pathogens Prototheca (Chlorophyta) & retained for membrane transport genes bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.... by @ankarn.bsky.social

#Protists #Algae #Microbes #Plastids #Parasites #ProtistsOnSky #Genomics #Evolution #Biology

Taking advantage of the release of Clémence Boucher's 2nd paper on the toxins of the haptophyte Prymnesium parvum
doi.org/10.1016/j.al...
to promote also her first article on mixotrophy
doi.org/10.1016/j.ha...
with a cool video (2x speed) of Prymnesium phagocytosing a cryptophyte. #protistsonsky

We are very happy to announce a free-to-attend #anvio workshop and ECR symposium in Oldenburg to discuss integrated microbial 'omics and learn applications of anvi'o.

More information and application link (application deadline is Jan 10): anvio.org/workshops/20...

Please apply and/or circulate 😇

electron and fluorescence microscopy pictures of complex microbial cells

Advanced genetic techniques & #microscopy offer new insights into anaerobic ciliate + methanogen #symbiosis phys.org/news/2024-10...

Methanogenic #symbionts of anaerobic #ciliates are host, habitat specific academic.oup.com/ismej/articl... #protists by @micrott.bsky.social @symbiosisrox.bsky.social

Finally, some fantastic news for Polish science today!
The Prime Minister @donald-tusk.bsky.social and Minister of Finance @andrzej-domanski.bsky.social have announced a 500 million PLN top-up for 🇵🇱 Poland's major research grant agency, @ncngovpl.bsky.social, in 2025!

Genetic contributions to LECA. LECA’s gene repertoire was chimeric, containing genes derived from the Asgardarchaeota-derived host cell, mitochondrial endosymbiont, and potentially other prokaryotic sources, along with a set of eukaryote-specific genes that evolved after the divergence of eukaryotes from prokaryotes.

"Reconstructing the last common ancestor of all eukaryotes"

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

In this Consensus View, we put forth the status quo and an agreed path forward to reconstruct LECA’s gene content.

🧪

Drama when a ciliate colony encounters a zoop. #protistaday #protistsonsky #marinelife

Plastid translocon recycling in dinoflagellates demonstrates the portability of complex plastids between hosts The plastids of photosynthetic organisms on land are predominantly “primary plastids,” derived from an ancient endosymbiosis of a cyanobacterium. Conv…

This really is an excellent paper. It shows that plastid protein import machinery can be inherited through serial transfer, and that we should not expect additional membranes in tertiary plastids. In other words, serial transfers got easier to explain

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

Just wrapped up an amazing #protist #metabarcoding course in Prague!
Supported by 4EU+ Alliance, co-organized by Charles Uni, Sorbonne & Warsaw Uni. 🇨🇿🇫🇷🇵🇱
Huge thanks to all who made it happen, especially Gosia Chwalińska & Michał Karlicki who led #nanopore bioinformatics & to brilliant students! 🙌

The PR web site

Welcome to the PR2 databases BlueSky account. We will post here important news about the PR2 sequence databases as well as papers using the databases.
pr2-database.org

Thrilled to start sharing our lab life and research updates here! Kicking things off with a huge congrats to Michał Karlicki on his successful PhD defence! 🎉 So proud of his journey and grateful for all he’s contributed to our team. Here’s to the next chapter, Michał! 💫
#ProtistOnSky

Just a few days left for abstract submission to attend the 2025 Microbiology Society Annual Conference and our session on genetic recombination in eukaryote microbes!
Speakers include @jvhooff.bsky.social , Thomas Richards, Oliver Billker, Iván García-Cunchillos (@ankarn.bsky.social lab). Join us!

Protistology Nordics Meeting 2024 | Protistology Nordics Society Join us for the 3rd Protistology Nordics Meeting in Uppsala on 2-3 May 2024!

3rd protistology Nordics meeting now open for registration #protistsonsky
protistologynordics.netlify.app/upcoming/pro...