Pascal Falter-Braun

Health Medinice Network covers our work how gut bacteria can control our immune responses by injecting their proteins into human cells. Implications for human health, especially #CrohnsDisease. #microbiome #health #autoimmune

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

healthmedicinet.com/gut-bacteria...

Mit tiefer Traurigkeit nehmen wir von unserem hochgeschätzten Kollegen Prof. Oliver T. Keppler Abschied. 😔

g-f-v.org/in-memoriam/

Darmkeime lenken Entzündungen aktiv – das ändert das Verständnis von Morbus Crohn Eine neue Studie zeigt: Darmbakterien greifen direkt in Immunzellen ein und können Entzündungen steuern – auch bei Morbus Crohn.

Artikel in focus online über unsere neueste Forschung wie Darmbakterien unser Immunsystem beeinflussen, indem die eigene Eiweißstoffe direkt in menschliche Zellen injizieren. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#microbiome #morbuscrohn #Gesundheit
www.focus.de/gesundheit/d...

"Unter der Führung von Peter Altmaier und Katherina Reiche ist vor 13 Jahren die deutsche Solarindustrie kollabiert. Hans-Josef Fell [...]: Reiche wollte die erneuerbaren Energien damals unwirtschaftlich machen. Daran hat sich nichts geändert."
www.n-tv.de/politik/Hans...

Meinung: Sascha Lobo: Donald Trump und das Chaos im Weißen Haus: Der Irrwitz regiert die USA Donald Trump hat seit seinem Amtsantritt 2025 keinen einzigen kohärenten, klaren, politischen Gedanken geäußert. Darüber müssen wir offen reden und schreiben, auch wenn es uns zutiefst verstört.

Danke @saschalobo.bsky.social die Irrsinn-normalisierende Sprache in den deutschen und internationalen Medien so klar zu benennen und zu beschreiben. Es ist gut zu sehen, dass man nicht alleine angewidert ist wie Absurditäten in seriösen Nachrichten verharmlost werden.
www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/net...

Global Access to PNAS Research. PNAS provides free access to journal content for researchers in over 120 lower-income countries, promoting inclusivity and advancing global scientific discovery.

PNAS is committed to reducing barriers to science by providing free, immediate access to journal content and waiving publication fees in over 120 lower-income countries, supporting global access to research. Learn more: https://ow.ly/BSpa50YaoXV

Greetings from inside the economic blockade zones of Minneapolis and St Paul! Don’t look away, please. We need you. It’s been a month and they’re trying to destroy us.

A picture with large yellow, green and red block letters and it says: BLACK HISTORY HONORING THE PAST INSPIRING THE FUTURE

Happy Black History Month

We have leadership who refuses to acknowledge it, so we have to take up the torch. They can’t erase history.

“Always remember you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars
to change the world”
-HARRIET TUBMAN
❤️💛💚
#Pinks #ProudBlue

This looks like a great opportunity. Consider applying ...

Die Klimakrise gibt es immer noch, auch wenn Friedrich Merz & Co. nicht darüber reden (wollen).

Effector–host interactome map links type III secretion systems in healthy gut microbiomes to immune modulation Nature Microbiology, Published online: 26 January 2026; doi:10.1038/s41564-025-02241-yLarge-scale computational and in vitro analyses identify commensal type III secretion systems and substrates in the human gut microbiome that can interact with human proteins to modulate immune pathways.

Out Now! Effector–host interactome map links type III secretion systems in healthy gut microbiomes to immune modulation #MicroSky

Effector–host interactome map links type III secretion systems in healthy gut microbiomes to immune modulation - Nature Microbiology Large-scale computational and in vitro analyses identify commensal type III secretion systems and substrates in the human gut microbiome that can interact with human proteins to modulate immune pathwa...

"Our findings indicate that T3SS contribute to microorganism–host cohabitation and that effector–host protein interactions may represent an underappreciated route by which commensal gut microbiota influences health." www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thank you so much!

Co-expression-wide association studies link genetically regulated interactions with complex traits - Nature Communications Proteins can affect traits through their interactions with one another. Here, the authors propose the COWAS method to identify pairs of interacting genes or proteins whose genetically regulated co-exp...

My second dissertation paper is now out in @natcomms.nature.com! Here we introduce the co-expression-wide association study (COWAS) method for identifying pairs of genes or proteins whose genetically regulated co-expression is associated with complex traits. 🧵⬇️

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

Final/10
Take-home message:
Direct protein injection may be an underappreciated mode of communication between the human microbiome and its host—with implications for evolution, immunity, and disease.

Happy to discuss!

9/10
Finally, we looked if the effectors can be found in the gut microbiomes of patients with or without inflammatory bowel diseases. Surprisingly, we found many more effectors in patients with crohn’s disease compared to healthy individuals, but fewer in ulcerative colitis patients.

8/10
Important: the targeted human functions play a role in microbiome-influenced disease, like autoimmune diseases. And we demonstrate that effectors change the immune responses when they are in human cells.

7/10
In the network, we see that effectors converge onto few host proteins - a pattern we found before in effector-host protein interactions in plant symbioses 🌱

6/10
To find out, what the commensal effectors do in human cells we experimentally built a systems-level map of their interactions with human proteins.

5/10
Moreover, these commensal effectors are not simply weakened versions of pathogenic ones. Their sequences, structures, and domains suggest distinct evolutionary trajectories and roles beyond virulence.

4/10
But here’s the surprise: we found T3SS to be common in bacteria from healthy human guts. We show that commensal bacteria can actually use these systems and show that a set of bacterial proteins – so called effectors – get injected into human cells.

3/10
Pathogens use a needle-like molecular structure - the Type III Secretion System (T3SS) - to inject bacterial proteins into host cells. These systems are usually viewed as weapons of disease.

2/10
Most microbiome research focuses on metabolites or immune sensing. But some bacteria have another option: they can deliver proteins directly into human cells and change their behavior.

What's the science behind our paper? A thread 🧵 1/10

The human gut microbiome plays a major role in immunity, metabolism, and disease risk—but we still don’t fully understand how gut bacteria communicate with our cells.

Happy and proud as well to see the paper out in @natmicrobiol.nature.com! Thanks to Pascal @interactome.bsky.social and all collaborators for this fantastic work. A special thank to the people in our team at @tagc-u1090.bsky.social, @netbiotagc.bsky.social and Renaud at @afmblab.bsky.social

Further Daniel Krappmann, Claudia Falter, Thomas Rattei, Jean-Claude Twizere, Marc Vidal, Mike Calderwood, Daniel Kotlarz, and many more.

Some of the outstanding individuals who shaped this paper with their ideas, analyses, and thoughts: @azanzoni.bsky.social @marianneboes.bsky.social @tclavel.bsky.social @netbiotagc.bsky.social @tcahitch.bsky.social @lukelambourne.bsky.social @mcalderwood.bsky.social