Thomas Tørring

AutoMLST2: a web server for phylogeny and microbial taxonomy Abstract. Accurate and accessible phylogenetic analysis is essential for understanding microbial taxonomy and evolution, which are integral to microbiology

Happy to announce that our „newest old tool“ autoMLST2.0 is out and published. You need an accurate and easy to use tool to build #phylogenetictrees from #bacterialgenomes: academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

CASCADE-Cas3 enables highly efficient genome engineering in Streptomyces species Abstract. Type I clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) systems are widespread in bacteria and archaea. Compared to more widely

Interested in engineering streptomycetes? Struggling with existing genome engineering tools? Then check out our newest paper on CASCADE-Cas3 based genome engineering in streptomycetes!

Some highlights below:

We are excited to see our review published! In it, we explore the diversity of enzymatic strategies for installing aromatic side chain cross-links in RiPPs. If you like interesting chemistry and new enzyme reactions, be sure to check it out!

PARAS: high-accuracy machine-learning of substrate specificities in nonribosomal peptide synthetases Nonribosomal peptides are chemically and functionally diverse natural products with important applications in medicine and agriculture. Bacterial and fungal genomes contain thousands of nonribosomal p...

~5y ago, Barbara, Serina, @marnixmedema.bsky.social & I teamed up to make a better NRPS A-domain specificity predictor. The Challis group & others joined along the way to add some very cool insights.

Very proud of this work. Check it out now on biorxiv!

doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Convergent Evolution of the Antimycobacterial Lasso Peptide Triculamin Triculamin is a ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptide (RiPP) lasso peptide with potent antimycobacterial activity, produced by an unusual, non-canonical biosynthetic gene c...

Just in time for the holidays

Convergent Evolution of the Antimycobacterial Lasso Peptide Triculamin
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

@amerrild.bsky.social @tizianasvenningsen.bsky.social @thomastorring.bsky.social

Autologous DNA mobilization and multiplication expedite natural products discovery from bacteria The transmission of antibiotic-resistance genes, comprising mobilization and relocation events, orchestrates the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance. Inspired by this evolutionarily successful p...

Interesting tool alert. The thing that makes this look promising is a way to "plasmidify" biosynthetic gene clusters in their native producers. Could simplify refactoring and expression in chassis strains. #secmet

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

😉 that’s the nice thing about working across continents. Even when you are sleeping someone else is working on the project.

Through a great collaboration with @wildtypemc.bsky.social, we take a closer look at the macrocyclases across all lasso peptide BGC, and in particular, the split between canonical and non-canonical BGCs. A final thanks to Carlsberg Fonden for the funding.

The lasso peptide, gelatinamin, from B. gelatini contains an unusual additional macrocyclization similar to lariocidin recently reported by Wright et al. (doi.org/10.21203/rs....)

But even more surprisingly, we find normal canonical BGC that leads to very similar triculamin-like lasso peptides across Pseudomonadota and Bacilliota. We characterize one such lasso peptide from C. palmae produced in Burkholderia, and one from B. gelatini.

Now we show through heterologous expression in S. albus, that the biosynthesis is non-canonical and appear to need only a precursor peptide with a follower and a macrocyclase. And an acetyltransferase as a self-resistance gene.

Two years ago, we reported that triculamin and alboverticillin - two identical compounds isolated in the 1950-60's were in fact lasso peptides. Back then, we were puzzled by the biosynthesis, that didn't appear to follow the canonical lasso peptide logic. No leader peptide, no RRE, and no peptidase?

Convergent Evolution of the Antimycobacterial Lasso Peptide Triculamin Triculamin is a ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptide (RiPP) lasso peptide with potent antimycobacterial activity, produced by an unusual, non-canonical biosynthetic gene c...

A Christmas present to all of the lasso peptide connoisseurs out there. The next chapter in our work is on triculamin is ready on bioRxiv. Great work by two incredibly talented graduate students @amerrild.bsky.social and @tizianasvenningsen.bsky.social.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Adam Rivers (USDA-ARS) and I are hiring a joint postdoc to on a microfluidics and sequencing based project to better understand synthetic and natural microbiome community dynamics and generate data to build AI/ML models to infer interspp. interactions. Hit me up if interested!

MIBiG 4.0: advancing biosynthetic gene cluster curation through global collaboration Abstract. Specialized or secondary metabolites are small molecules of biological origin, often showing potent biological activities with applications in ag

Are you working on natural products? We’ve just released version 4.0 of the MIBiG data standard and repository! It now includes 3059 biosynthetic gene clusters, thanks to the combined efforts of 288 expert contributors. A thread: (1/8) academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

Early morning and on my way to Copenhagen for the 2024 Congress in the Danish Microbiological Society #DMS2024. Looking forward to seeing friends - old and new.

Hey Natural Products folks! Do you have a favourite ontology covering natural product bioactivities? I'm trying to make MIBiG a bit more systematic for the next release and would like to avoid creating a separate ontology if at all possible. #secmet #microsky

For teaching purposes, I am looking for culture collection strains that consistently produce a known antibiotic like vancomycin , erythromycin, daptomycin or similar. Any suggestions? I’d prefer NRRL or DSMZ

#secmet folks : a teach-in in honor of Chris Walsh. All students and post-docs encouraged to attend. This is an outstanding speaker list inspired a great scientist & teacher.

Now releasing into your podcast feeds: JGI's Natural Prodcast talks to Alison Narayan (UMich) about biocatalysis and candy corn! Notes and transcripts (and in-browser audio) at naturalprodcast.com
🧪🧬🖥️ #chemsky

In general it’s very visually pleasing. The chemical structures throughout the book looks great, the inserted vignets have some cool examples etc

A good book, a cup of coffee, and PJ Harvey. This morning is off to a start

Looking forward to reading this one

On the train to Copenhagen for the iimena symposium. Looking very much forward to two days of #naturalproducts

Lecturer/ Senior Lecturer in Antimicrobial Drug Discovery at Newcastle University Recruiting now: Lecturer/ Senior Lecturer in Antimicrobial Drug Discovery on jobs.ac.uk. Click for details and explore more academic job opportunities on the top job board

Come work with us!! Lecturer / Senior Lecturer in Antimicrobial Drug Discovery at Newcastle University @nubiosciences! Please RT

#AMR #DrugDiscovery #NaturalProducts #Metabolomics #Microbiology www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DCX827/l...

Completely agree. I really enjoyed reading this and will definitely be returning to both the paper and list of references.