Wilson Lab

tRNA-modifying enzymes in bacterial stress adaptation | Open Biology Transfer RNAs (tRNAs) and their modifications are central to bacterial translation and physiology, yet their roles in stress adaptation remain underexplored. While extensively studied in eukaryotes, a...

Happy to share our new review in Royal Society Open Biology 🎉
tRNA-modifying enzymes in bacterial stress adaptation:
How tRNA mods rewire translation under oxidative + antibiotic stress (MoTTs, moonlighting, therapy angles).
Read: doi.org/10.1098/rsob...
#RNAsky #microsky #AMR #RNAmodifications

The mechanistic basis of cargo selection during Golgi maturation Resident proteins of the Golgi recycle in vesicles and the protein GOLPH3 enables the COPI vesicle coat to accomplish this.

The mechanistic basis of cargo selection during Golgi maturation. From Rebecca Taylor, @katciazynska.bsky.social, @jggkaufman.bsky.social & @grigorytagiltsev.bsky.social at @mpibiochem.bsky.social with David Owen and Sean Munro's group @cellbiol-mrclmb.bsky.social | www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Translation landscape of stress granules Cryo–electron tomography visualizes stress granules in situ, revealing their spatial interplay with translation machinery.

Translation landscape of stress granules | Science Advances

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

GCN1 couples GCN2 to ribosomal state to initiate amino acid response pathway signaling During nutrient deprivation, activation of the protein kinase GCN2 regulates cell survival and metabolic homeostasis. In addition to amino acid stress, GCN2 is activated by a variety of cellular stres...

Beautiful reconstitution of amino acid stress-dependent ISR activation by my @harvardcellbio.bsky.social colleagues presenting a unifying mechanism for GCN2 activation, which requires ribosome collisions and is enhanced by cognate uncharged tRNA in the A site! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

We combine our yeast genetics experiments with the massive body of literature data to make a case for 40S scanning of 5’UTRs of by 1D diffusion (finalised version): m.rnajournal.cshlp.org/content/31/1...

Giant DNA viruses encode a hallmark translation initiation complex of eukaryotic life In contrast to living organisms, viruses were long thought to lack protein synthesis machinery and instead depend on host factors to translate viral transcripts. Here, we discover that giant DNA virus...

Giant DNA viruses taking on translation factors!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

GCN1 couples GCN2 to ribosomal state to initiate amino acid response pathway signaling During nutrient deprivation, activation of the protein kinase GCN2 regulates cell survival and metabolic homeostasis. In addition to amino acid stress, GCN2 is activated by a variety of cellular stres...

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

Finally! This was really missing.

Deep-mining the archaeal proteome for antibiotics www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The human ribosome modulates multidomain protein biogenesis by delaying cotranslational domain docking - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology By studying dynamic folding intermediates on the human ribosome, Pellowe et al. show that newly made domains help each other to fold but do not stably interact until synthesis is complete, avoiding in...

Our article on human multidomain protein biogenesis is now published in @natsmb.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The team of Prof. Dr Niels Gehring @volkerboehm.bsky.social records a comprehensive database that records systematically which genes and gene variants are directly affected by "Nonsense-mediated mRNA Decay" which opens up new avenues for RNA and genome research.
The database ➡️ nmdrht.uni-koeln.de

Join us for the Austrian Cryo-EM Symposium Nov 11–12 at @istaresearch.bsky.social!

Top speakers, cutting-edge cryo-EM, and a chance to explore Vienna & the ISTA campus.

Register now 👉 cryoem-symposium.pages.ist.ac.at #cryoEM #teamtomo

Confidence-guided cryo-EM map optimisation with LocScale-2.0 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.11.674726v1 #cryoEM

Evolution of drug-binding residues in eukaryotic ribosomes - PubMed Drugs that target eukaryotic ribosomes are becoming increasingly important as research tools and potential therapies against cancer and pathogenic eukaryotes. However, in the absence of comparative st...

Evolution of drug-binding residues in eukaryotic ribosomes…. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40944914/

Congratulations to Dirk Görlich and Steven L. McKnight, 2025 #LaskerAward winners! - “for discoveries that exposed the structures and functions of low-complexity domains within protein sequences” 🧪
@mpi-nat.bsky.social
#Lasker2025 #LaskerLaureate #structuralbiology #phaseseparation

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars.

OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.

🚨 We're hiring, please share! The FMI seeks a tenure-track Group Leader (Assistant Prof) in Structural Biology 🔬
Innovative scientists in genome regulation, RNA metabolism, or protein homeostasis—especially using cutting-edge approaches—apply now at www.fmi.ch/education-ca...

Julian Davies

Julian Davies was a renowned scientist who made crucial strides in the study of antibiotics & antibiotic resistance. Honor his legacy at the Julian Davies Memorial Symposium on Oct. 10, hosted by the University of British Columbia. Register by Sept. 15 to attend via Zoom or in person! asm.social/2Af

Thrilled to announce our #preprint on a new factor in the last line of defense in #translation quality control out on #bioRXiv! Spearheaded by fantastic PhD student @kaushikiyer.bsky.social, supported by Chloé Walter, Alina Kraft, Max Müller and Lena Tittel.

Mechanism of 30S subunit recognition and modification by the conserved bacterial ribosomal RNA methyltransferase RsmI Ribosomal RNA (rRNA) modifications are important for ribosome function and can influence bacterial susceptibility to ribosome-targeting antibiotics. The universally conserved 16S rRNA nucleotide C1402...

Mechanism of 30S subunit recognition and modification by the conserved bacterial ribosomal RNA methyltransferase RsmI #microsky #rnasky 🦠 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Origins of life: the molecules that could have unlocked peptide synthesis For life to emerge on Earth, peptides must first have formed without the aid of enzymes — but how? Reactions of sulfur-containing molecules might have been key.

OMG this is it?! The final piece in the puzzle?!😲 tRNAs are the key, because archaic tRNAs sit at the core of all ribosomes. If aminoacyl-tRNAs could form on early Earth, you have a plausible route for the first self-replicators, the bridge from chemistry to biology
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The Sinha Lab The Sinha lab studies key aspects of protein synthesis and translational control in healthy and diseased states. We study the multifaceted roles of ribosomes as critical sensors of cellular stress.

I am delighted to share that I have started my lab in the Dept. of Biochemistry @uofubiochem.bsky.social at the University of Utah @utah.edu. My laboratory will study key aspects of protein synthesis and translational control in healthy and diseased states. #RNAsky sinha.biochem.utah.edu

Congrats Niladri! Looking forward to following your work in the next years!!

📄 New paper: 3DEM Structure Map Validation Recommendations

Two new metrics assess model-to-map fitness in cryo-EM:
🔹 Q_relative_all → compares avg Q-score across PDB/EMDB
🔹 Q_relative_resolution → compares within similar resolution

#3DEM #CryoEM #wwPDB

Conservation and evolution of the programmed ribosomal frameshift in prfB across the bacterial domain | mBio Translation termination is catalyzed by one of two release factors in bacteria, RF1 or RF2. It has been known for decades that RF2 levels in Escherichia coli are regulated by a programmed ribosomal frameshift within the prfB gene that encodes RF2. We ...

Latest from the lab! Analysis of everyone’s favorite regulatory mechanism in bacteria — the RF2 programmed frameshift! Likely present in the ancestor of bacteria, use of this mechanism is influenced by stop codon usage! Big congrats to @cassidyprints.bsky.social
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Integrated structural biology of the native malarial translation machinery and its inhibition by an antimalarial drug Nature Structural & Molecular Biology - Integrated structural biology approach leveraging in situ cryo-electron tomography reveals molecular details of the native malarial translation...

Our #CryoET story on how a top antimalarial drug candidate perturbs the native malarial translation machinery is out @natsmb.nature.com🥳 rdcu.be/eBbrH

A massive team effort led by @leonieanton.bsky.social Meseret Haile & Wenjing Cheng in collaboration with Jerzy Dziekan & the Alan Cowman! #TeamTomo

Research has found that, though open offices often foster a symbolic sense of organizational mission, they are damaging to workers’ attention spans, productivity, and creative thinking. So why does the open-office plan persist?
nyer.cm/voWmBqs

AI designs new superbug-killing antibiotics for gonorrhoea and MRSA Two new potential drugs have been designed by AI to kill drug-resistant bacteria, in a major Massachusetts Institute of Technology study.

AI designs antibiotics for gonorrhoea and MRSA superbugs. 🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Ribosome transfer via tunnelling nanotubes rescues protein synthesis in pancreatic cancer cells Background: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is considered as one of the deadliest types of cancer. Tunnelling nanotubes (TNTs) are thin, membranous, intercellular communication structures obse...

Our significantly expanded preprint is out. In it we show that pancreatic cancer cells can transfer ribosomes via tunnelling nanotubes and rescue protein synthesis when co-cultured with cells with impaired ribosomal biogenesis.
🧪
(Includes some #bayesian #rstats inspired by @rmcelreath.bsky.social)

A programmed decline in ribosome levels governs human early neurodevelopment - Nature Cell Biology Ni, Wei, Vona and colleagues use human brain organoids to dissect patient AIRIM variants associated with neurodevelopmental features. A subset of variants impaired ribosome production and protein synt...

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