Mike Tisza

Metagenomic editing of commensal bacteria in vivo using CRISPR-associated transposases Although metagenomic sequencing has revealed a rich microbial biodiversity in the mammalian gut, methods to genetically alter specific species in the microbiome are highly limited. Here, we introduce ...

1/9 Metagenomics lets us read microbiomes in nature without cultivation, but writing (editing) them in their native context is still a major challenge.

Meet MetaEdit: a platform for pathway-scale metagenomic editing inside the gut microbiome. science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Metagenomic editing of commensal bacteria in vivo using CRISPR-associated transposases Although metagenomic sequencing has revealed a rich microbial biodiversity in the mammalian gut, methods to genetically alter specific species in the microbiome are highly limited. Here, we introduce ...

Very excited to share our latest work in Science on metagenomic editing (MetaEdit) of the gut microbiome in vivo & directly modifying unculturable immune-modulatory SFB bug in the small intestine. 🦠🧬🛠️
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Very happy to share our recent work @cultivarium.bsky.social on genetic tools for Ideonella sakaiensis, a (Betaproteo-)bacterium that degrades PET plastic.

We identified a plasmid vector for the strain and generated a large RB-TnSeq library, screening for genes impacting plastic degradation.

Scalable and systematic hierarchical virus taxonomy with vConTACT3 Viruses are key players in diverse ecosystems, but studying their impacts is technically and taxonomically challenging. Taxonomic complexities derive from undersampling, diverse DNA and RNA genomes wi...

🚨vConTACT3 preprint live!🚨(Peer Review soon...!)

vConTACT3 delivers a unified, scalable, and transparent framework for genome-based virus taxonomy — helping translate big viral data into systematic classification.

🔗 Read the preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Improvements details below 👇

🚨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...

Untargeted longitudinal ultra deep metagenomic sequencing of wastewater provides a comprehensive readout of expected and unexpected viral pathogens Wastewater surveillance has become a powerful tool to monitor circulating viruses at a community level. Currently, most wastewater surveillance efforts use target-based approaches such as quantitative...

Can you take a quarter cup of composite sewage, simply ask ‘what’s in there?’, and find out all of the pathogens circulating in that community?

That is the question we asked in our latest pre-print.

Turns out you can.
1/
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

We're thrilled to announce SeqHub, an AI-enabled platform for biological sequence analysis. SeqHub brings together sequence search, genome annotation, and data sharing in one place.

Long-read metagenomics for strain tracking after faecal microbiota transplant Nature Microbiology - A long-read metagenomics method empowers faecal microbiota transplantation studies by precisely tracking bacteria from donors to recipients, distinguishing co-existing strains...

Excited to share our LongTrack study out in
@natmicrobiol.nature.com today!

Fecal microbiota transplant (FMT), donor 💩 => patients' gut, is an effective treatment for recurrent C. difficile infection & is being evaluated for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) & other conditions 1/

📄 rdcu.be/eL8mR

Figure 3. (A–N) Sequencing coverage plots of genetic sequences of viruses detected in indoor air samples of a daycare and phylogenetic analyses of sequences of (O) two human bocaviruses and (P) one RSV identified in some samples, Belgium, January–December 2022

New paper out!

We sampled indoor air for a year in a Belgian daycare and used shotgun metagenomics to track viruses. We recovered many viral genomes of interest.

What would you sample next?

Read at @eurosurveillance.org
@emmanuel-microb.bsky.social, @jellematthijnssens.bsky.social
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Wastewater Sequencing Reveals Persistent Circulation and Rising Prevalence of Several Oncogenic Viruses Across Texas https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.17.25335998v1

How do you long-read sequence metagenomes? I would argue it starts with the right sample storage & DNA extraction, to enable efficient @nanoporetech.com /@pacbio.bsky.social sequencing, which we investigated in our new paper: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Massive thanks to Klara for driving this

Preprint out for myloasm, our new nanopore / HiFi metagenome assembler!

Nanopore's getting accurate, but

1. Can this lead to better metagenome assemblies?
2. How, algorithmically, to leverage them?

with co-author Max Marin @mgmarin.bsky.social, supervised by Heng Li @lh3lh3.bsky.social

1 / N

A BLAST update adding support for compressed files and csv output with headers is a Good Friday night surprise!

blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/doc/blast-ne...

GitHub - mtisza1/Cenote-Taker3: Discover and annotate the virome Discover and annotate the virome. Contribute to mtisza1/Cenote-Taker3 development by creating an account on GitHub.

I want to thank my excellent co-authors and collaborators for the fantastic teamwork. If you want to test Cenote-Taker 3 yourself, please see the installation instructions on the GitHub repo: github.com/mtisza1/Ceno...

I'm very excited to share our manuscript for Cenote-Taker 3. We show that (1) CT3 quickly and accurately annotates previously uncatalogued virus genomes and (2) finds divergent virus genomes in contiguous assemblies. Virome benchmarks are SO hard, but I think we came up with clever and useful ones.

Thanks so much, Ludo! Again, these both look great, and i'm hoping to utilize them soon.

Can anyone explain how MetaROR and Peer Community In are different? @metaror.bsky.social @peercommunityin.bsky.social
(both seem great)

Electron micrograph of two phage infecting a host cell side-by-side, with hearts between them

Do you love phage? I have an opening for a postdoc in my lab at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science (@cmarinescience.bsky.social) looking at interactions between marine phage and iron, which is an important limiting trace metal in the oceans (1/5) 🧵#phagesky 🦠🌊

the treasure trove of all sequencing datasets

Excited to share a new preprint from the lab with @ryandhindsa.bsky.social ! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Led by @sherrynyeo.bsky.social, @erinmayc.bsky.social, and friends, we continue our journey to find viral DNA in our favorite place-- the overlooked and discarded reads in existing data! 1/

New pre-print out \o/ All about CRISPR, metagenomes, and what you learn when you collect (a lot of) spacers from natural communities, with @apcamargo.bsky.social @urineri.bsky.social @lhug.bsky.social but also Uri Gophna, Nikhil George (not on Bsky I think) & others at JGI doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Join my lab as a postdoctoral research scientist to investigate the diversity of drug-resistant #Salmonella and how #bacteriophages can help future food safety.

Apply by 2 July, details below!

I'm happy to announce the latest release of the GlobDB, available at globdb.org.

The GlobDB is a database of "species dereplicated" microbial genomes, and as of release 226 contains twice the number of species-representative genomes (306,260) than the latest GTDB release.

Announcing myloasm, a new long-read (ONT R10/PacBio) metagenome assembler that I've been working on during my postdoc in the Heng Li lab (@lh3lh3.bsky.social).

myloasm-docs.github.io

An innovative outbreak detection program that tracks viruses in #wastewater identified the #measles virus in #Houston in early January 2025, before cases were reported. #TailorLabs #saracregeen @miketisza.bsky.social @bcmhouston.bsky.social #TEPHITexas #RiceU @apha.org www.bcm.edu/news/measles...

Another example of how wastewater sequencing is going to positively impact Public Health. TEPHI's Outbreak Detection program shows once more the sensitivity and specificity of agnostic sequencing .... ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2...

Recombination and the Species Structure of the Genus Bacteroides www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #jcampubs

🎉🎉 Happy to share our new paper! 🎉🎉

Have you ever wondered about the animal viruses living right alongside us in our cities?

Between our pets at home, rats in the sewers, pigeons on the streets, insects everywhere, and even farm animals nearby, it’s no surprise +++

Assemblies of long-read metagenomes suffer from diverse errors Genomes from metagenomes have revolutionised our understanding of microbial diversity, ecology, and evolution, propelling advances in basic science, biomedicine, and biotechnology. Assembly algorithms...

I am very happy (and anxious) to share with you our most recent work in which we evaluated four of the most popular long-read assemblers,

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

and tell you just a little bit about it in the following 🧵

🧪🧪🧪10 incredible findings about Cas10-relative, mCpol:
result number 10 will surprise you!🧪🧪🧪

@erinedoherty.bsky.social and I teamed up to understand the role and function of Cas10-relative, mCpol, and its role in antiphage immunity. For more, check out Erin's thread 👇

Comparative wastewater virome analysis with different enrichment methods https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.25.645222v1