Sonja-Verena Albers

An Asgard Archaeon (Lokiarchaeum ossiferum) growing and retracting its arms

Crawling motility of Lokiarchaeum ossiferum, our favorite Asgard Archaeon.

Charge segregation in the C-terminal linker of FtsZ enables Z-ring scaling with prokaryotic cell width Bacterial cytokinesis is orchestrated by the Z-ring, a cytoskeletal structure formed by treadmilling filaments of the tubulin-like GTPase FtsZ. During assembly, filament curvature must match the cell ...

Happy to share a new preprint from the lab: Marko became interested in whether the disordered linker of FtsZ might influence how the protein organizes into the Z-ring. And this led to some surprising findings!
Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

List of available cultures

Ecoli cells (Dapi, on left) expressing bacterial (center) and archaeal 16S rRNA.

Clone-FISH paper out: Manuscript/resource alert #microsky 🦠 We present a collection of 30 E. coli (CloneFISH) cultures, each carrying a plasmid for the heterologous expression of a (near) full-length 16S rRNA gene from one of 30 lineages of archaea, including 17 yet uncultured ones.

Call for Applications Early Career Rescue Fellowships. 14 postdoctoral Fellowships for researchers whose work is restricted due to political pressure in the USA. Deadline 9 January 2026

Together with @zukunftskolleg.bsky.social and Tübingen College of Fellows, FRIAS is offering #EarlyCareerRescueFellowships.
Open to researchers from all nationalities & represented disciplines | 1-7 years postdoc experience | 2 years btw 7/2026 and 11/2028
👉 uni-freiburg.de/frias/call-f...

Great opportunity to join Freiburg University as a Postdoc from abroad! Happy to help !

1/6
PhD /PostDoc positions available. Exploration of physiological functions of the cell fusogen Fusexin1 in Archaea.
In a collaborative project between the Albers lab (Freiburg) and the Podbilewicz lab (Technion) starting in January 2026.

We have wondered what a complex archaeal cell might look like ever since 2014. It’s been a long road (and the journey is far from over), but it’s a good time to pause for breath and look. These Asgard archaeal cells are a surprise! And that is the joy of being a cell biologist.

An Asgard archaeon with internal membrane compartments The emergence of eukaryotes from a merger between an archaeon and a bacterial cell ~two billion years ago involved a profound change in cellular organisation. While the order in which different featur...

An Asgard archaeon containing internal membrane compartments!! 😯
This will reshape our understanding of how the eukaryotic endomembrane system originated.
Congrats to @buzzbaum.bsky.social, @tbharat-lab.bsky.social and all ppl involved!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Genomic insights into antiviral defense systems in haloarchaea and their impact on virus susceptibility The ongoing evolutionary arm race between archaea and their viruses has led to the development of diverse defense systems against viruses. While recent computational approaches have uncovered many bacterial antiviral defense systems, the viral infection strategies and antiviral responses of archaea remain poorly explored. In this study, we identified antiviral defense systems encoded in the genomes of 20 recently sequenced haloarchaeal strains. These systems are representative of the broader repertoire of defense systems present across all 253 complete sequenced Halobacteria (class) genomes in the RefSeq database. Detailed analysis showed that these haloarchaea usually harbor multiple different defense systems, with a particularly high abundance of uncharacterized predicted defense systems against viruses (Phage Defense Candidates (PDCs)). To further explore the impact of anti-viral defense mechanisms on host range, an extensive virus-host pair screening was performed using a panel of known virulent viruses. By correlating the genomic defense profiles with observed viral infectivity and adsorption profiles, a weak correlation between the number of encoded defense systems and viral susceptibility was detected. Specifically, hosts infected by fewer viruses tended to encode a broader repertoire of antiviral defense systems, whereas those with fewer defense systems were frequently infected. It was found that the host range of haloarchaeal viruses is majorly determined by the availability of viral receptors, whereas the presence of anti-viral defense systems plays a smaller but significant role. These findings offer valuable insights into the evolutionary pressure shaping archaeal antiviral strategies and lay the groundwork for future functional studies of archaeal defense systems.

Genomic insights into antiviral defense systems in haloarchaea and their impact on virus susceptibility | bioRxiv https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.08.687337v1?rss=1

Archaeal cells whose DNA has been stained with a blue dye. Zoomed-in images of mutant cells that display chromosome segregation defects.

High-resolution images of DNA-protein complexes obtained with atomic force microscopy. Upon binding, the protein bridges distant sites, forming loops.

📢 Interested in #chromosomes 🧬 & #archaea thriving at the edge of life? PhD project in York,UK on how archaea pass on their genome to daughter cells.Friendly supervisors: me, @steve-quinn-lab.bsky.social & @georgerheath.bsky.social

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
📅 January 7, 2026
Please RP🙏thx!

Great collaboration with @guo-lab.bsky.social to determine an in situ architectural model of the Tad pilus machine. Be on the lookout soon for a preprint on the same topic by Grant Jensen and @viollierpat.bsky.social. #microsky

📢 Postdoc position: Cell Biology of Cyanobacteria

in my group, as part of the Excellence Cluster "Microbes for Climate" (M4C) in Marburg, Germany.

More information at shorturl.at/wNnDT (see Project 2)

🔗Apply at shorturl.at/VsEDl
📅Deadline: Nov 16, 2025

Please repost. #Postdoc

(2/2) Expansion microscopy (ExM) allows scientists to easily and inexpensively visualise cellular structures that are challenging to see with traditional microscopy.

Learn more about how EMBL researchers are using ExM to push the boundaries of the life sciences: www.embl.org/news/science...

We’re on the cover of @embojournal.org
Odin, from Norse mythology, emerges from the Odinarchaeota yellowstonii genome, holding FtsZ1 and FtsZ2 the ancestral twins of tubulin highlighting their evolutionary divergence in Asgard archaea. 👉 shorturl.at/n7iZE
#archaea #evolution #tubulin #cytoskeleton

Modeling glycans with AlphaFold 3: capabilities, caveats, and limitations Abstract. Glycans are complex carbohydrates that exhibit extraordinary structural complexity and stereochemical diversity while playing essential roles in

This is going to be one of the biggest, most important features of AlphaFold @alphafold.bsky.social if further improved! Glycobiochemistry needs this bestfriend! #glycotime

academic.oup.com/glycob/artic...

Applications closing tonight (midnight French time) !!!
Still a few hours to apply !!

Please RT. Post-doc opportunity alert! 💥 closing 10th December.. Come join our team (www.thelowlab.org) at Imperial, London, working on the structure and mechanism of bacterial secretion systems.

For more details and to apply please see

www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-...

Congrats!🎉

Lab’s first paper is out!! We show the first structures of #Asgard #chromatin by #cryo-EM 🧬❄️
Asgard histones form closed and open hypernucleosomes. Closed are conserved across #Archaea, while open resemble eukaryotic H3–H4 octasomes and are Asgard-specific. More here: www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Pan-modification profiling facilitates a cross-evolutionary dissection of the thermoregulated ribosomal epitranscriptome Pan-Mod-seq enables systematic, multi-modification mapping of rRNA across life. Applying it to diverse organisms reveals that hyperthermophiles dynamically install stabilizing modifications to support...

How to become a "hot RNA" 🌡️? The answers were kindly provided by hyperthermophilic archaea: rRNA modifications are key! Check out this new publication presenting pan-modification profiling of the epitranscriptome. www.cell.com/cell/fulltex.... (1/3)

Congrats!

Archaea alert 🚨! This WEDNESDAY, Oct. 22nd at 10 AM EST / 4PM CET, we will kick off our fall seminar series with a talk from Dr. Nili Ostrov, co-founder of Cultivarium FRO, telling us about her organization’s work to accelerate genetics in non-model organisms including archaea!! Zoom link in email!

Second up this WEDNESDAY at 10AM EST / 4 PM CET, we have an exciting talk from Dr. Yan Liao who will tell us about her research combing molecular genetics and advanced microscopy techniques to shed light on archaeal cell division!! Check your email or sign up for the link: forms.gle/6QvCjHH2H4pxro…

We’re excited to announce the incredible speaker line-up for the Prokaryotic Cell Biology Conference! Join the leading researchers as they explore the latest advances in Nanoimaging, Cell Growth and Cellular Structures.
Join our speakers & register today! ➡️https://bit.ly/47rtkbw
#ProkaryoticCellBio

Everyone interested in bacterial signal transduction, environmental sensing and motility, don't miss this conference organised by Ariane Briegel @arianebriegel.bsky.social and myself! We have great invited speakers and a number of slots allocated to short talks: www.grc.org/sensory-tran...

Balancing stability and flexibility when reshaping archaeal membranes.
buff.ly/4yqUdBj

A new family of ribosome hibernation factors in Archaea Ribosome hibernation preserves translation machinery during stress, yet its mechanisms in Archaea remain poorly defined. Here we identify Hib, a previously unrecognized family of archaeal hibernation factors. Genetic, structural and biochemical analyses show that Hib binds ribosomal subunits, blocking the mRNA channel and tRNA sites to inactivate translation. Deletion of hib in Thermococcus barophilus delays recovery from stationary phase and reduces 70S ribosome pools, establishing its role in ribosome preservation. Hib displays a unique modular architecture, combining a bacterial-like HPF module with tandem CBS domains. Cryo-EM structures reveal conformational heterogeneity of Hib:ribosome complexes, consistent with dynamic engagement, and the CBS-containing N-terminal domain binds adenine nucleotides, suggesting a link between hibernation and energy status. These findings define Hib as a key archaeal hibernation factor and provide a framework for understanding ribosome dormancy and adaptation across all domains of life. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Agence Nationale de la Recherche, https://ror.org/00rbzpz17, ANR-25-CE12-4161

A new family of ribosome hibernation factors in Archaea | bioRxiv https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.11.676729v1?rss=1

Open position to work on Type IX secretion (#T9SS) in our lab, in collaboration withe the group of Eric Reynolds at the Dental School of the University of Melbourne. Please spread the word, and forward to anyone potentially interested ! Apply here:
emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/Docto...

Cryo-EM resolves the structure of the archaeal dsDNA virus HFTV1 from head to tail This structure of an archaeal tailed virus (arTV) provides detailed insights into arTV assembly and infection mechanisms.

Out in Science Advances: Our #cryoEM structure of HFTV1, a virus infecting the halophile #archaea. *First full atomic structure (containing all structural proteins) of any tailed virus!* Congrats and thanks to all co-authors and our fantastic collaborators! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...