François Rousset

A massive expansion of Thoeris defense systems !

Congrats @erezyirmiya.bsky.social and @soreklab.bsky.social

🚨 We are hiring a group leader in Virology at CIRI !

Join us in the beautiful city of Lyon 🇫🇷

Deadline on March 31st 2026

📢 We have multiple open PhD positions to study bacterial immune systems using cutting-edge cryo-EM, microbiology, and biochemistry in our group! Join us and uncover how bacterial defenses eliminate predators and engineer next-gen biotech tools.

🔥 Apply by Jan 8, 2026

Details: phd.pages.ista.ac.at

Our SPARHA story is out in Nature Communications!
doi.org/10.1038/s414...
We investigated a new short pAgo-HNH defense system, showing that it assembles into filaments degrading cellular DNA, inducing abortive infection, resolved their structure, and uncovered the activation mechanism 🧵

Mind-blowing ! Congratulations to the team !

🚀New preprint from our lab!
I am very excited to finally share what has been the main focus of my PhD for the past almost 3 years! It is about viral dark matter and a powerful tool we built to shed light on it. 🧬💡
Continue reading (🧵)

Filament formation and NAD processing by noncanonical human FAM118 sirtuins Nature Structural & Molecular Biology - Baretić and Missoury et al. identify vertebrate proteins FAM118B and FAM118A as sirtuins similar to bacterial antiphage enzymes and show that...

Very happy to share our collaborative project on FAM118 proteins - noncanonical sirtuins that form filaments and process NAD in human and other vertebrate cells.

A mysterious lactamase-nuclease module found in multiple defense systems finally solved ! Congrats @owentuck.bsky.social et al. !

Recurrent acquisition of nuclease-protease pairs in antiviral immunity Antiviral immune systems diversify by integrating new genes into existing pathways, creating new mechanisms of viral resistance. We identified genes encoding a predicted nuclease paired with a trypsin...

Our nuclease-protease story is out! We explored a fascinating case of coevolution and modularity in prokaryotic immune systems: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Thanks to wonderful coauthors/collaborators/friends, the whole @doudna-lab.bsky.social and everyone at @innovativegenomics.bsky.social

Fantastic paper by James Bean and colleagues on phage Bas63 - this has been one of the first phages I ever isolated just for fun as a PhD student (in 2012!). It's #2 on this plate of Rhine river water on an E.coli K-12 lawn....

How it started /// How it's going

Congrats Alexandre, @lucievirevolte.bsky.social et al. 🙌
Glad we could bring a small contribution

Défenses immunitaires : une invention répétée au cours de l’évolution Dans une étude publiée dans Nature Ecology and Evolution, des scientifiques montrent que les gènes SAMD9 et SAMD9L, a

#ResultatScientifique 🔎 Certains gènes antiviraux humains partagent des défenses communes avec les bactéries, révélant une convergence évolutive surprenante 🧬
✍️ Alexandre Legrand et @lucievirevolte.bsky.social
📕 Nature Ecology and Evolution
buff.ly/Su0EdiU

🚨New preprint out!
We present a foundational genomic resource of human gut microbiome viruses. It delivers high-quality, deeply curated data spanning taxonomy, predicted hosts, structures, and functions, providing a reference for gut virome research. (1/8)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Amazing work from @ostermanilya.bsky.social and @soreklab.bsky.social : phage-triggered genome degradation produces a signaling molecule that activates a cell-killing effector 😮

Time to rename the HAD+TM system we described a few years ago with @dbikard.bsky.social !

Bacteria can sense when a virus starts shredding their genome — by detecting methylated mononucleotides.
Here’s the story of how we discovered the Metis defense system 👇
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A membrane-bound nuclease directly cleaves phage DNA during genome injection From mammals to bacteria, the direct recognition and cleavage of viral nucleic acids is a potent defense strategy against viral infection, but it requires mechanisms for distinguishing self from non-s...

#phahe #phagesky

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Jumbo phage–mediated transduction of genomic islands | PNAS Bacteria acquire new genes by horizontal gene transfer, typically mediated by mobile genetic elements (MGEs). While plasmids, bacteriophages, and c...

@prczhaoyansong.bsky.social’s deep dive into the dark matter of compost communities is now out 🎉 Genomic islands hijack jumbo phages—whose capsids enable transfer of large tracts of DNA—shedding new light on the scale & scope of phage-mediated gene flow 😎

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

JOB OFFER #PhageSky

We have a postdoc position opening in my group to investigate phage-MGE interactions !

We're based in the very nice city of Lyon, France @mmsb-lyon.bsky.social

Contact me for more info !

>> Apply on the CNRS webpage emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...

Antiviral reverse transcriptases reveal the evolutionary origin of telomerase Defense-associated reverse transcriptases (DRTs) employ diverse and distinctive mechanisms of cDNA synthesis to protect bacteria against viral infection. However, much of DRT family diversity remains ...

1/10 Genome maintenance by telomerase is a fundamental process in nearly all eukaryotes. But where does it come from?

Today, we report the discovery of telomerase homologs in a family of antiviral RTs, revealing an unexpected evolutionary origin in bacteria.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Absolutely mind-blowing ! Congrats 🤩

Are you interested in studying RNA phages? We are looking for a PhD student and a postdoc to join the lab!

For more information and how to apply, see below 👇

Please RT!

Perfect timing in the field for a beautiful review on NAD+ in bacterial immunity by @hugovaysset.bsky.social and @audeber.bsky.social @cp-molcell.bsky.social

#MicroSky

www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Phages communicate across species to shape microbial ecosystems Arbitrium is a communication system that helps bacteriophages decide between lysis and lysogeny via secreted peptides. In arbitrium, the AimP peptide binds its cognate AimR receptor to repress aimX ex...

Our latest work reveals that arbitrium phages cross-communicate across species! These tiny viruses “listen” to signals from others, coordinating lysis-lysogeny decisions across species.
Original idea from @albertomarina.bsky.social and, as usual, he was right.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Two intensive sampling periods of oyster-associated vibrio and their phage, 4 years apart, and many surprises. Despite being washed by the Atlantic, wide tides, and vibrio (almost?) disappearing most of the year, we can find the exact same virulent phages 4 years later (down to 0 SNP)! preprint👇

#ExpertsCNRS 🔎 Journalistes, en lien avec le #NobelPrize de médecine, le bureau de presse du @cnrs.fr vous propose des scientifiques pouvant vous éclairer sur les travaux des lauréats.

Si vous êtes intéressés :
📞📩 cnrs.fr/fr/contacts

A miniature CRISPR–Cas10 enzyme confers immunity by inhibitory signalling - Nature Panoptes, an anti-phage defence system against virus-mediated immune suppression, is revealed.

Now online at @nature.com we show how the Panoptes defense system protects against viruses that attempt immune evasion - and expands our understanding of the role of oligonucleotides in immunity.

Check out this work co-led with @benadler.bsky.social here:

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

A miniature CRISPR–Cas10 enzyme confers immunity by inhibitory signalling - Nature Panoptes, an anti-phage defence system against virus-mediated immune suppression, is revealed.

Today in @nature.com , we highlight how a cousin of CRISPR-Cas10, mCpol, establishes an evolutionary trap in anti-phage immune systems.

Check out @erinedoherty.bsky.social and my work from @doudna-lab.bsky.social lab here:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

*New preprint*
#phage #phagesky
This is a cool effort lead by Fangchao, Arkin lab, to test a new tech to study phage-host interaction mechanism at scale, in a droplet!
We benchmarked it by using a set of 2 classical coli phages to identify their receptors, impt for generatin data for AI/ML models

Amazing !! Congrats @benmorehouse.bsky.social and co !

PhD-positie Bacteriële Verdedigingssystemen tegen Virussen | LUMC Wij zoeken een getalenteerde en gemotiveerde PhD-kandidaat om het onderzoeksteam van Luuk Loeff te versterken. In dit project maak je gebruik van geavanceerde technologieën om te ontrafelen hoe bacter...

Hiring! 🧬🔬

Ever wondered how bacteria fight off viruses? We’re looking for a PhD student to dive into the molecular basis of newly discovered microbial immune systems, an area of biology where much remains to be uncovered.

RT/share to help us find our next team member!
www.lumc.nl/en/about-lum...