Catherine Armbruster

The evolutionary tale of tailocins in Pectobacterium show genus-wide homologous recombination and inversions of tail fiber genes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.30.667677v1

Keynote Speakers Nicole Dubilier and Matthew Parsek

What to expect at the ASM Biofilms Conference

Extremely proud of my postdoc Dr. Elizabeth Knorr for successfully mentoring 5 undergrad research students through several cloning projects this summer!!! Congrats to the mini Knorr Lab! @cmuscience.bsky.social

illustration of a person peering through DNA helices at animal silhouettes

Kin selection has sparked debate for decades.

Now, a landmark study offers a generalised version of Hamilton’s rule, capturing the messy, nonlinear reality of evolution and cooperation.

Explained in our latest Insight Article: buff.ly/EKfPBhH
#EvoBio #Evolution

Headed home after a fabulous week in RI for the Microbial Adhesion & Signal Transduction GRC. We even had a critical mass of Parsek/Woz alums for a photo!

Here's a fun plasmid from many many years ago I just resurrected. This is p100bp, a ladder-making vector that produces a DNA ladder when cut with EcoRI. I got this from the legendary Open Biotechnology company that sadly went under. Looking forward to testing this and adding to my shop.

Cyclic-di-AMP modulates cellular turgor in response to defects in bacterial cell wall synthesis - Nature Microbiology Brogan et al. uncover a signalling pathway in which levels of the nucleotide second messenger c-di-AMP increase in response to defects in cell wall synthesis. This regulatory pathway decreases turgor ...

Very happy to share that a large part of my thesis work is out today: B. subtilis uses the second messenger c-di-AMP to modulate its turgor pressure in response to the state of its cell envelope. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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We need to get you out to Carnegie Mellon for a seminar in the Bio department! 🤓

Congrats, Glen! Looking forward to reading this.

Our paper in @science.org 👉🏽 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

is accompanied by an especially thoughtful perspective by Carey Nadell and Chris Marx 👉🏽
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Air sampling gives a nice reminder about about how many fungi we are breathing... 🦠🧫

Species turnover within cystic fibrosis lung microbiota is indicative of acute pulmonary exacerbation onset - Microbiome Background Acute pulmonary exacerbations (PEx) are associated with increased morbidity and earlier mortality for people living with cystic fibrosis (pwCF). The most common causes of PEx in CF are by b...

Our new paper out now in Microbiome: Species turnover within #cysticfibrosis lung microbiota is indicative of acute pulmonary exacerbation onset

doi.org/10.1186/s401...

#CF #microbiomeecology #microbiome

Love the idea of the bugs under a microscope feeling. 😂

Thank you! Planning to visit the Pantheon, so will investigate this gelateria… for science… 😁

Nature is healing 🥲

Thanks Liz and all the past and current lab members of David Relman and @blishlab.bsky.social , it's been such a privelege to work with such caring people. Thanks to @lasy.bsky.social @sankaranlab.bsky.social and Claire Donnat for putting together such a nice day of celebrations!!

Simons Graduate Fellowships in Ecology and Evolution The purpose of these awards is to provide support for students entering U.S.-based Ph.D. programs with a plan to perform research in ecology and evolution. While we will consider all projects in ecolo...

Check out this brand new fellowship from the Simon’s Foundation in Ecology and Evolution. Incoming grad students this year are eligible to apply. No citizenship restrictions. www.simonsfoundation.org/grant/simons...

(Trigger warning) May my next pizza be Italian 🙏

Off to Milan for #ECFS2025! Looking forward to catching up with fabulous European CF colleagues and being a massive history nerd in Roma with my brother after the conference! 🤓

Do people in the same household share strains when they have the same species?

How many cells transmit when a strain is shared?
Can strain composition be dynamic when species composition is stable?

We answer these and related questions for the facial skin microbiome in our latest paper.

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Formation of a membraneless compartment regulates bacterial virulence - Nature Communications The RNA-binding protein CsrA switches from upregulation to downregulation of virulence genes in bacteria through unclear mechanisms. Here, the authors show that the switch between promoting and repres...

Interesting study shows CsrA forms a dynamic, membraneless compartment with sRNAs, mRNAs & the degradosome in E. coli, flipping its role between activating and repressing virulence. A new layer of RNA-based regulation! #microbiology #RNA #CsrA

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

Evolution of a vascular plant pathogen is associated with the loss of CRISPR-Cas and an increase in genome plasticity and virulence genes Paauw et al. report on the evolution of a plant pathogenic Xanthomonas pathovar and show that the gain of mobile genetic elements and virulence factors coincided with the loss of the CRISPR-Cas genome...

Borrelia burgdorferi also lacks CRISPR and other defense apparatus. Coincidence?

“Evolution of a vascular plant pathogen is associated with the loss of CRISPR-Cas and an increase in genome plasticity and virulence genes”

Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...
#MicroSky 🦠🧪🧬🧫🔬

As new Editor in Chief of Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, an OA society journal of ISEMPH, we welcome papers at the interface of evolution and medicine. I especially encourage studies in infection biology, broadly construed. We're a great and constructive journal! academic.oup.com/emph

Patient Groups Urge Caution Around Disruptions to Critical Safety-Net Programs Drastic changes to essential services could have a devastating impact on patient health and well-being.

Cystic Fibrosis patients & others living w/ serious health conditions, like cancer, asthma, and blood disorders, rely on social safety-net programs to maintain their health and well-being..large-scale RIFs w/out [due] caution and safeguards would put patients at risk

www.cff.org/press-releas...

P.S. Pro tip: Clicking on the little music button at the bottom right will give you a little fireplace with classical music, to optimize coziness as you work. 🥹

Our tool SprayNPray to detect contaminating contigs in genome assemblies is a GUI now! Also a bunch of other command line genomic/metagenomic analysis tools on this free web app. Thanks to @midauthorbio.bsky.social for putting this genomic toolbelt together!

Looking forward to the Biofilminar! My lab is going to do a little watch party with pizza. 😎 @cmuscience.bsky.social

Congratulations to CMU Bio undergrad Olivia for getting into her top picks for dental school and to Jot (my lab’s first student 🥲) for successfully defending her honors thesis in the Quantitative Bio & Bioinformatics (QBB) Master’s program!!! Today is a good day.
@cmuscience.bsky.social

Persistence and evolution of Pseudomonas aeruginosa following initiation of highly effective modulator therapy in cystic fibrosis | mBio The highly effective cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator modulator therapy Elexakaftor/Tezacaftor/Ivacaftor (ETI) has changed cystic fibrosis (CF) disease for many people with cystic f...

Check out this latest work by @catarmbruster.bsky.social and Bomberger Lab w/assist from us in mBio. We show that modulator therapy changes evolution of the P aeruginosa populations that persist through therapy. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...