George Birchenough
LightNews LightNews
banner
gobletcellguy.bsky.social
George Birchenough
@gobletcellguy.bsky.social
800 followers 1.2K following 47 posts
Updates from the Birchenough Lab, one of the Mucin Biology Groups based at the University of Gothenburg. All things goblet cell, mucus and mucin. Check us out:
www.birchenoughlab.org
https://www.medkem.gu.se/mucinbiology/
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
gobletcellguy.bsky.social
George Birchenough @gobletcellguy.bsky.social · Feb 11
Just in case any new #mucus, #Goblet cell or #mucin folks have joined up recently, we have a small but growing starter pack for this area - let me know if you want in 🫡
go.bsky.app/7Z84CmG
Reposted by George Birchenough
bpodaily.bsky.social
Microbiota colonising the new born colon prime goblet cells producing the gut-protective mucus

📷 Åsa Johansson et al @gobletcellguy.bsky.social
University of Gothenburg in @jem.org

➡️ bpod.org.uk/archive/2025...
May 15, 2025 at 10:20 AM
gobletcellguy.bsky.social
Happy to see this finally published 🙌 Thanks to the editors and reviewers for the constructive process 😎
jem.org Journal of Experimental Medicine @jem.org · May 5
The colonic mucus barrier & sentinel goblet cells protect the distal gut from microbial challenges. Johansson, @gobletcellguy.bsky.social et al show that microbial colonization drives sequential development of both of these barrier mechanisms in the pre-weaning intestine. rupress.org/jem/article/...
May 5, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Reposted by George Birchenough
larsvereecke.bsky.social
Abstract deadline for #GGIG2025 is approaching fast! Don’t miss your chance to share your research at the 5th Ghent Gut Inflammation Group Meeting! 🧬🦠 www.vibconferences.be/events/5th-g...
5th Ghent Gut Inflammation Group Meeting
15-16 May 2025, Ghent, Belgium Host-microbiota interactions in health and disease
www.vibconferences.be
March 24, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Reposted by George Birchenough
mucosalimmunol.bsky.social
Which cells use Myd88 to control Segmented Filamentous Bacteria colonization? Here work explores the hematopoietic MyD88/IL-22 axis during SFB growth. www.mucosalimmunology.org/article/S193...
March 28, 2025 at 2:43 PM
gobletcellguy.bsky.social
My colleague Sjoerd van der Post just quietly dropped a preprint defining the interaction of the #ETEC SPATE family enzyme EatA with intestinal Muc2, providing some fascinating insights into host specific #mucus degradation 🤯. Check it out: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Degradation of the intestinal mucus layer by the ETEC protease EatA is species specific determined by the structure of the MUC2 mucin
Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) infections are a leading cause of diarrheal illness, responsible for an estimated 100,000 deaths annually. ETEC pathogenesis is driven by various virulence fact...
www.biorxiv.org
March 22, 2025 at 12:48 AM
gobletcellguy.bsky.social
Nice discussion around the ongoing #glycoRNA debate, check out the comments
cashwood.proteaglyco.com Chris Ashwood @cashwood.proteaglyco.com · Mar 18
Second preprint casting doubt on glycoRNA.
“we further demonstrate that recombinant soluble LAMP1 can be purified following the glycoRNA isolation method… thus representing a considerable source of glycans in samples of glycoRNA”
Still waiting for a journal publication of either preprint.
March 20, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Reposted by George Birchenough
larsvereecke.bsky.social
In our lates review, we explore new insights into the gut-joint axis, a connection is not absolute. A causal role for the microbiota is context-dependent, and arthritis can also arise independently through sterile mechanisms: authors.elsevier.com/a/1kkn55Eb0R...

#GutJointAxis
authors.elsevier.com
March 11, 2025 at 7:47 AM
gobletcellguy.bsky.social
Say what now?!
February 26, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Reposted by George Birchenough
microbiome.bsky.social
So excited to share this latest work by @kelseyhuus.bsky.social !!!
She shows that flagellin in the human gut affects whether or not people develop fever in response to vaccine, and the amount of flagellin reflects diet
February 25, 2025 at 6:35 AM
Reposted by George Birchenough
dbojar.bsky.social
glycowork v1.5 is now released! We're excited to see the cool things you'll be doing with it:-)

Lots of new & improved functionality, check out the Release notes for the full change log:
Release v1.5.0 · BojarLab/glycowork
Changelog [1.5.0] Added ✨ Added type hints to all functions (e6721a1) Added CodeCov shield to track PyTest test code coverage (23d6456) Added more PyTest unit tests (e.g., 0c94995, 23d6456, 5a99d6...
github.com
February 18, 2025 at 9:49 AM
Reposted by George Birchenough
cdiener.com
Happy to announce that MEDI, our method to quantify dietary intake through metagenomics is out now. 🧬 🧪🧫🦠 www.nature.com/articles/s42...

#metagenomics #microbiome #microbiomesky

So what is MEDI? A combination of two things:
Metagenomic estimation of dietary intake from human stool - Nature Metabolism
Diener et al. present a method that allows the estimation of dietary intake from human stool by detecting food-derived DNA in faecal metagenomes.
www.nature.com
February 18, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Reposted by George Birchenough
ocoleman.bsky.social
For all the #mucus fans out there who believe in our knight in slimy armour and want to join the starter pack 👇 contact @gobletcellguy.bsky.social
#mucusmatters
gobletcellguy.bsky.social George Birchenough @gobletcellguy.bsky.social · Feb 11
Just in case any new #mucus, #Goblet cell or #mucin folks have joined up recently, we have a small but growing starter pack for this area - let me know if you want in 🫡
go.bsky.app/7Z84CmG
February 17, 2025 at 2:18 PM
Reposted by George Birchenough
halllab.bsky.social
1/ 🚨 New preprint alert! 🚨 We’re thrilled to share our latest work exploring microbiome & genomic #Bifidobacterium co-evolutionary & functional signatures across diverse animal hosts. This has been a long time coming, & huge credit to Magda for her incredible hard work as first author! 🐾✨👇
Host-specific microbiome and genomic signatures in Bifidobacterium reveal co-evolutionary and functional adaptations across diverse animal hosts
Animal hosts harbour divergent microbiota, including various Bifidobacterium species and strains, yet their evolutionary relationships, and functional adaptions remain understudied. By integrating tax...
doi.org
January 11, 2025 at 10:11 AM
gobletcellguy.bsky.social
This was a fun study from Scott Hultgrens lab that we contributed to, led by Philippe Azimzadeh, looking at #UPEC interactions with colonic #mucus:
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Mechanisms of uropathogenic E. coli mucosal association in the gastrointestinal tract
Inverse regulation of flagella and type 1 pili facilitates access to colon mucus by uropathogenic E. coli.
www.science.org
February 17, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Reposted by George Birchenough
lucyicm.bsky.social
New paper out today from the lab on Akkermansia muciniphila 🦠and how it breaks down host glycans! Very proud of my group, especially @cassiebakshani.bsky.social who did an amazing job. @naturemicrobiol.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Carbohydrate-active enzymes from Akkermansia muciniphila break down mucin O-glycans to completion - Nature Microbiology
Biochemical characterization of 66 carbohydrate-active enzymes from the gut microorganism Akkermansia muciniphila reveals that these enzymes can break down a range of host glycans, including mucin, wh...
www.nature.com
January 31, 2025 at 10:25 AM
Reposted by George Birchenough
maryseberkhout.bsky.social
#microsky
maryseberkhout.bsky.social Maryse Berkhout @maryseberkhout.bsky.social · Dec 11
📚 I am happy to share that our latest paper is out in Glycobiology!

🦠 We developed a synthetic community of human gut microbes that completely degrades mucin glycans.

🔬 We studied its enzymes and ecological interactions in vitro.

#glycotime #mucin #microbiome

academic.oup.com/glycob/artic...
Mucin-driven ecological interactions in an in vitro synthetic community of human gut microbes
Abstract. Specific human gut microbes inhabit the outer mucus layer of the gastrointestinal tract. Certain residents of this niche can degrade the large an
academic.oup.com
February 12, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Reposted by George Birchenough
carolynbertozzi.bskyverified.social
Discovery of a new Cu-dependent cellulose degrading enzyme for biomass conversion #glycotime (trying to overlook the extraneous proton, see if you can find it)

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A metagenomic ‘dark matter’ enzyme catalyses oxidative cellulose conversion - Nature
A metalloenzyme capable of oxidatively cleaving cellulose, found in a microbial community specialized in lignocellulose degradation, could enable sustainable biofuel production.
www.nature.com
February 13, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Reposted by George Birchenough
kknoop.bsky.social
Don’t miss #ASRI2025 in St. Paul Minnesota May 17-21. Check out fantastic talks on the Maternal, Fetal, and Neonatal Immunology and submit your abstract by 2/15! theasri.org/Abstracts-Po...
February 14, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Reposted by George Birchenough
ntorow.bsky.social
Still time to submit late breaking abstract to this fantastic meeting: www.perinatal-immunity.de/en/symposium...
International Symposium on Perinatal and Early Life Immunity | perinatal immunity immunology TRR 359 PILOT
www.perinatal-immunity.de
February 11, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Reposted by George Birchenough
lethalityjane.bsky.social
The measles outbreak in Texas is reminding me of the public letter Roald Dahl wrote about losing his daughter to measles in 1962, just before the vaccine was publicly available.
Excerpt from a public letter Roald Dahl wrote encouraging people to vaccinate their children. Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything. “Are you feeling all right?” I asked her. “I feel all sleepy,” she said. In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead. The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her. On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.
February 15, 2025 at 5:49 PM
gobletcellguy.bsky.social
Just in case any new #mucus, #Goblet cell or #mucin folks have joined up recently, we have a small but growing starter pack for this area - let me know if you want in 🫡
go.bsky.app/7Z84CmG
February 11, 2025 at 5:48 PM
gobletcellguy.bsky.social
Yes
philipcball.bsky.social Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · Feb 10
I have a Commentary in Cell Systems suggesting that we should stop telling simple but misleading stories about biology & give some careful thought to how to incorporate the complexity from the outset.
(This link should give free access & downloads until 1 April)
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Should biology put complexity first?
The dictum “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler” poses a problem for biology. How simply can it be told without doing dama…
www.sciencedirect.com
February 10, 2025 at 10:03 PM
gobletcellguy.bsky.social
Now that we're into #GPCR biology, I get to include (what I'm sure is) a very original joke in my journal club presentation...
February 10, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Reposted by George Birchenough
napaaqtuk.bsky.social
Sadie Schaus gives an interesting, well presented talk showing that Ruminococcus digestion of mucin (specifically MUC2) releases nutrients that support B. Theta growth. This is important because mucin can contain over 100 types of molecules!
journals.asm.org/doi/full/10....
#BeneficialMicrobes
Ruminococcus torques is a keystone degrader of intestinal mucin glycoprotein, releasing oligosaccharides used by Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron | mBio
An important facet of maintaining healthy symbiosis between host and intestinal microbes is the mucus layer, the first defense protecting the epithelium from lumenal bacteria. Some gut bacteria degrad...
journals.asm.org
July 23, 2024 at 3:01 PM
Reposted by George Birchenough
tpelaseyed.bsky.social
How do massive megaDalton-sized transmembrane mucins reach the plasma membrane in intestinal epithelial cells? 🧐 Using proximity labeling, proteomics, and CRISPR KO, we uncovered key roles for MYO1B, MYO5B, and SNX27 in mucin transport. portlandpress.com/biochemj/art... #mucins #glycotime
The MYO1B and MYO5B motor proteins and the sorting nexin SNX27 regulate apical targeting of membrane mucin MUC17 in enterocytes
A dense glycocalyx, composed of the megaDalton-sized membrane mucin MUC17, coats the microvilli in the apical brush border of transporting intestinal epithelial cells, called enterocytes. The formatio...
portlandpress.com
December 13, 2024 at 8:35 AM