Inhibiting heme piracy by pathogenic Escherichia coli using de novo-designed proteins - Nature Communications Many pathogens encode transporters that extract heme directly from host proteins. In this study, the authors demonstrate the utility of de novo-designed proteins in understanding the mechanism behind ...

Excited to share our latest work using AI-designed proteins to block heme-piracy by E. coli. Published in @natcomms.nature.com. A team effort between my lab and the ‪‪@knottrna.bsky.social‬ ‬lab, with experimental work led by the talented @danielrfox.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Electron flow in hydrogenotrophic methanogens under nickel limitation - Nature Two distantly related methanogens shift the methanogenic pathway under nickel limitation, suggesting that methanogens adapt to changing bioavailability of nickel by rerouting electron flow between two...

Electron flow in hydrogenotrophic methanogens under nickel limitation www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

Our new consensus statement on reducing and reporting contamination in microbiome studies is the cover image of this month's Nature Microbiology: www.nature.com/articles/s41... In the cover photo, you can see our postdoc Sophie Holland in fully PPE sampling the atmosphere of terrestrial Antarctica.

New #methanogen culture just dropped! Check out the 'Methanonezhaarchaeia'! Happy to see this one out. A new methylotrophic methanogen cultivated from a hot spring in Yellowstone National Park. Gives insights into the metabolic diversity and evolution of this group. #microsky 🦠🔥 tinyurl.com/yw8ku2bj

Hydrogenase-driven ATP synthesis from air www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #jcampubs

Exclusive: NIH to terminate hundreds of active research grants Studies that touch on LGBT+ health, gender identity and DEI in the biomedical workforce could be terminated, according to documents obtained by Nature.

In an unprecedented move, the US National Institutes of Health has begun mass terminations of research grants that fund active scientific projects because they no longer meet “agency priorities”.


https://go.nature.com/4bpG2It

Just got an email from the Fulbright Association. As of right now, funding has been cut off to 12,500 US citizens currently abroad and and more than 7,400 foreigner scholars and students in the United States

Eukaryotes' closest relatives are internally simple syntrophic archaea Eukaryotes are theorized to have originated from an archaeal phylum Promethearchaeota (formerly 'Asgard' archaea)1,2. The first cultured representatives revealed valuable insight3,4 but are distantly ...

Isolated in just 3 years! (previously, 12 years). We obtained two strains from 'Hodarchaeales', proposed to be closest to our archaeal ancestor. Our analysis suggests the ancestor was an anaerobic, syntrophic, peptidotrophic, archaeon with a simple intracellular structure and possible aerotolerance.

Here's the promised natural product preprint: Flavoaffinins, elusive cellulose-binding natural products from an anaerobic bacterium. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Horizontal gene transfer of the functional archaellum machinery to Bacteria Motility in Archaea is driven by a nanomachinery called the archaellum. So far, archaella have been exclusively described for the archaeal domain; however, a recent study reported the presence of arch...

Would you expect that Bacteria use an archaellum for swimming? We didn't, but we found that some Chloroflexota do! Find the story here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A little thread below 1/n

Conformational dynamics of a multienzyme complex in anaerobic carbon fixation In the ancient microbial Wood-Ljungdahl pathway, carbon dioxide (CO2) is fixed in a multistep process that ends with acetyl–coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA) synthesis at the bifunctional carbon monoxide dehydr...

Conformational dynamics of a multienzyme complex in anaerobic carbon fixation www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

@quantaofgeorge.bsky.social was on @markowenmartin.bsky.social's Matters Microbial podcast to talk about his PhD work on multicellular magnetotactic bacteria in my lab. Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJom... Podcast of your choice: www.microbe.tv/mm/mm-076/

To update people on the NSF PRFB situation: despite the court challenge and rescinding the original memo, the NSF has continued to comply with the executive order. They have not communicated with us at all and our paychecks are still canceled indefinitely. I know people who cannot pay their rent.

Methanol transfer supports metabolic syntrophy between bacteria and archaea - Nature Zhaonella formicivorans produces methanol, for a novel syntrophic interaction, without requiring methylated compounds as an input.

Methanol transfer supports metabolic syntrophy between bacteria and archaea www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Quinone extraction drives atmospheric carbon monoxide oxidation in bacteria - Nature Chemical Biology Here, Kropp et al. use cryo-electron microscopy and structural modeling to show that the enzyme [MoCu]-CO dehydrogenase interacts with its partner, the membrane-bound quinone-binding protein CoxG, to ...

In Nature Chemical Biology today, we reveal how microbes clean our atmospheres by consuming carbon monoxide (CO) gas. A methodological tour de force from Ashleigh Kropp, Rhys Grinter, and David Gillett with broad implications for the atmosphere and bioenergetics. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

American science and medicine has been thrown into chaos and uncertainty over the past week. Here are some stories to get up to speed. 1/12

I am very honored that our paper was selected by PLOS Biology as one of the editors top pics for 2024!

New paper out from studies of metagenomes from Tramway Ridge in Antarctica I am a co-author on a new paper that just came out. Nutritional niches of potentially endemic, facultatively anaerobic heterotrophs from an isolated Antarctic terrestrial hydrothermal refugium eluc…

New paper out on which I am a co author on studies of metagenomes from Tramway Ridge in Antarctica phylogenomics.me/2024/12/19/n...

I apologise for HydDB being down. Aarhus University decided to stop hosting it at quite short notice. However, we plan to relaunch first thing next year and are in the midst of creating a much-needed HydDB 2.0. HydDB 1.0 is good for hydrogenase information, but our HMMs best for classification. 1/2

CSU researchers catalog the microbiome of U.S. rivers CSU scientists have detailed the presence and function of microorganisms in rivers covering 90% of the watersheds in the continental U.S.

Kelly Wrighton & colleagues out in Nature today "A functional #microbiome catalogue crowdsourced from North American rivers" www.nature.com/articles/s41... commentary: agsci.source.colostate.edu/researchers-... @csusoilcropsci.bsky.social on #environment #microsky 🧬 🦠🧪

The Parkinson’s disease drug entacapone disrupts gut microbiome homoeostasis via iron sequestration Nature Microbiology - Entacapone, a Parkinson’s disease medication, sequesters iron resulting in a selective inhibition of gut microbial activity.

Our study on drug-gut microbiome interactions is out!
🦠💊

We show that the #Parkinson's drug entacapone induces iron deficiency in microbes, leading to selective inhibition of microbial activity.

@cemess.bsky.social @sotonbiosciences.bsky.social #BostonUni

Check the full story here: rdcu.be/d0ZAQ