Marcin J. Suskiewicz
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msuskiewicz.bsky.social
Marcin J. Suskiewicz
@msuskiewicz.bsky.social
Structural biologist and biochemist. CNRS researcher at CBM Orléans @cbm-upr4301.bsky.social. Interested in protein modifications & interactions. Also husband, dad of 2, friend, ☧. Personal website: msuskiewicz.github.io
Pinned
Very happy to share our collaborative project on FAM118 proteins - noncanonical sirtuins that form filaments and process NAD in human and other vertebrate cells.
Filament formation and NAD processing by noncanonical human FAM118 sirtuins
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology - Baretić and Missoury et al. identify vertebrate proteins FAM118B and FAM118A as sirtuins similar to bacterial antiphage enzymes and show that...
rdcu.be
Reposted by Marcin J. Suskiewicz
Humbled to contribute structurally to this incredible work on CRBN biology, led by Vanessa. Big kudos 👏 to the amazing teams at GSK and @thewoolab.bsky.social . Huge thanks to my mentor, Gabe Lander @landerlab.bsky.social , for helping me step into the field 😊🙌🥂🎉
My first ever @nature.com 🫶🌿
Pour a glass of champagne AND red Bordeaux—Our newest work with GSK @scripps.edu is out in @nature.com! Here we describe SB-405483, the first allosteric CRBN ligand which potentiates neosubstrate degradation. Congrats Vanessa and all authors! 🍷💫💐 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
January 22, 2026 at 7:18 PM
Super notes (under the code itself) on protein binder design.
January 22, 2026 at 9:57 AM
Reposted by Marcin J. Suskiewicz
Reposted by Marcin J. Suskiewicz
My time in @martinsteinegger.bsky.social's group is ending, but I’m staying in Korea to build a lab at Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine. If you or someone you know is interested in molecular machine learning and open-source bioinformatics, please reach out. I am hiring!
mirdita.org
Mirdita Lab - Laboratory for Computational Biology & Molecular Machine Learning
Mirdita Lab builds scalable bioinformatics methods.
mirdita.org
January 20, 2026 at 11:07 AM
I find the current developments in AI's use in mathematics interesting (see e.g. some recent posts by mathstodon.xyz/@tao). It does feel a bit like 'an AlphaFold moment' in the sense that there are many independent reports of AI providing new possibilities in this branch of research.
Terence Tao (@[email protected])
950 Posts, 113 Following, 21.4K Followers · Professor of #Mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles #UCLA (he/him).
mathstodon.xyz
January 20, 2026 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by Marcin J. Suskiewicz
Last Friday over dinner, we talked with @svenklumpe.bsky.social and @jnoms.bsky.social about this very creative paper—and quickly went off track. Why? Because, as Sven put it, Vaults ( #Vaults ) remain the “siren 🧜‍♀️ of cell biology 🔬” intriguing and attractive, but maddeningly hard to figure out. 1/3
The barrel-shaped structures found by the thousands in most animal cells are one of biology’s biggest mysteries. But although researchers haven’t figured out the function of these “vaults,” they now report a new use for the puzzling particles.

Learn more: https://scim.ag/49pv8mB
January 20, 2026 at 5:46 AM
Reposted by Marcin J. Suskiewicz
Happy New Year all. I know it's been a draining and difficult year for science in general, but wanted to share some good news: our intrabody paper has now been published in Science Advances with lots of additional data.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
AI-assisted protein design to rapidly convert antibody sequences to intrabodies targeting diverse peptides and histone modifications
AI-powered pipeline converts antibodies into functional intrabodies, enabling live-cell imaging of peptides and histone marks.
www.science.org
January 19, 2026 at 5:43 PM
Reposted by Marcin J. Suskiewicz
Our latest cotranslational folding story is now published @cp-molcell.bsky.social. Really cool (I think) new ideas about how exactly the ribosome directs folding and assembly to make sure complicated proteins mature efficiently in cells.
www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
The ribosome synchronizes folding and assembly to promote oligomeric protein biogenesis
Large oligomeric proteins constitute a major fraction of proteomes, but are difficult to refold in vitro, raising the question of how cells direct their biogenesis. Roeselová and Shivakumaraswamy et a...
www.cell.com
January 19, 2026 at 5:14 PM
Reposted by Marcin J. Suskiewicz
I’m thrilled to share our work on phage triggers of the bacterial immune system in its final form @natmicrobiol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A phage protein screen identifies triggers of the bacterial innate immune system - Nature Microbiology
A library of 400 phage protein-coding genes is used to find a trove of antiphage systems, revealing systems that target tail fibre and major capsid proteins.
www.nature.com
January 18, 2026 at 10:45 PM
Reposted by Marcin J. Suskiewicz
Giving this a bump. I’ve had lots of friendly likes and follows, thanks— but no citations!

Pls drop a reference into the cup to support a poor historian who’s trying to get the science right!
#TEsky
Hey, good folks of #TEsky
Looking for good recent review, suitable for undergrads, of the fnxns of transposable elements in the genome, for class session on the nonlinear, highly regulated, 4D nucleome. Suggestions welcome!

(I'm the author of the "other book" on Barbara McClintock)

TIA!
The Tangled Field: Barbara McClintock's Search for the Patterns of Genetic Control
Buy The Tangled Field: Barbara McClintock's Search for the Patterns of Genetic Control on Amazon.com ✓ FREE SHIPPING on qualified orders
www.amazon.com
January 18, 2026 at 1:57 PM
Reposted by Marcin J. Suskiewicz
a Trp/Phospho/Ub trifecta linking metabolism and degradation - wow 🤩 big congrats to the whole team for this amazing, almost historic study.
New year, new preprint! 🎊

We are excited to share our recent work on #E3 ligase regulation in #metabolism!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

#ubiquitin #targetedproteindegradation #chemicalbiology

1/6
A CK2-FBXW11 kinase-E3 ubiquitin ligase cascade is a metabolic sensor regulating Tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase stability
Small molecules toggling the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) are powerful regulators of protein degradation. Yet, mechanistic knowledge of how endogenous ligands gate UPS decisions remains rudimentary. Here, we define control of UPS access to Tryptophan-2,3-dioxygenase (TDO2), which converts the essential amino acid tryptophan (Trp) to N-formylkynurenine. When Trp concentrations are limiting, TDO2 is degraded to avert tryptophanemia. Using CRISPRi screening and biochemistry, we identify a CK2-FBXW11 kinase-E3 ligase cascade that generates and recognizes tandem TDO2 phosphodegrons when not protected by Trp. Trp binding to an exosite safeguards TDO2 from phosphorylation-dependent ubiquitylation. Effects of Trp analogs on CK2-FBXW11-dependent ubiquitylation indicated that the indole, amino, and carboxylate groups are necessary for substrate shielding. Cryo-EM reveals how these moieties order a region proximal to the phosphodegrons; without Trp, this segment is flexible, enabling phosphorylation-coupled ubiquitylation. Overall, our data uncovered an endogenous small molecule allosterically stabilizing its own metabolizing enzyme through protection from a phosphorylation-ubiquitylation cascade. ### Competing Interest Statement B.A.S. is a member of the scientific advisory boards of Proxygen and Lyterian. The other authors declare no competing interests. Max Planck Society, https://ror.org/01hhn8329 European Union, ERC AdvG, UPSmeetMet, 101098161 to BAS Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds, https://ror.org/00dkye506
www.biorxiv.org
January 13, 2026 at 9:24 PM
Reposted by Marcin J. Suskiewicz
(1/3) Excited to post our updated pre-print! We show RNAPII clusters are simply collections of polymerase molecules stably engaged at single genes & cluster intensity is strongly correlated with txn output during Drosophila embryogenesis. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
September 18, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Reposted by Marcin J. Suskiewicz
"RNAPII clusters reflect local accumulations of transcriptionally engaged polymerases and do not form through higher-order mechanisms such as phase separation"

😬

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

by the @mirlab.bsky.social
A single cluster of RNA Polymerase II molecules is stably associated with active genes
In eukaryotic nuclei, transcription is associated with the clustering of RNA Polymerase II (RNAPII) molecules. The mechanisms underlying cluster formation, their interactions with genes, and their imp...
www.biorxiv.org
January 15, 2026 at 9:50 AM
A question to AlphaFold experts: do u think AF3 treats various AAs, ribonucleotides, and deoxyribonts as distinct tokens, or can it recognise similarities at chemical groups level (e.g. shared bases in RNA & DNA) and transfer insights - say from training on protein:DNA to modelling protein:RNA?
January 15, 2026 at 8:31 AM
Reposted by Marcin J. Suskiewicz
Fresh news on de novo genes! Happy to present our latest work published in Nature communications: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Keywords not in specific order: intergenic ORFs, de novo genes, GC content, foldability, genetic code, ancestral sequence reconstruction and more :)
January 11, 2026 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by Marcin J. Suskiewicz
Schaepe et al, 2026. Thermodynamic principles link in vitro transcription factor affinities to single-molecule chromatin states in cells www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
January 11, 2026 at 11:37 PM
My phone is not very good but we did have quite a lot of snow until yesterday (@cbm-upr4301.bsky.social )
January 8, 2026 at 12:03 PM
Reposted by Marcin J. Suskiewicz
Delighted to share a new paper from our lab, a study led by Mathieu Bergé looking at how an endogenous toxin targets replication to induce competence in the pneumococcus. dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...
A toxin/antitoxin system targeting the replication sliding-clamp induces competence in Streptococcus pneumoniae
Author summary The environment in which bacteria live puts them under a great deal of stress, forcing them to adapt constantly, either temporarily or permanently. Streptococcus pneumoniae, a pathogeni...
dx.plos.org
January 8, 2026 at 9:03 AM
Reposted by Marcin J. Suskiewicz
Greetings! I decided to make a YouTube video of my AlphaFold workshop that I've given a few times in the past year. Caveats aside, people seem to find this useful for thinking about how to model protein interactions and how to interpret various AF outputs 1/2

www.youtube.com/watch?v=u63o...
David's AlphaFold WorkShop 2026
YouTube video by David Fay
www.youtube.com
January 2, 2026 at 11:03 PM
After AlphaFold etc., how about an academic spam filter that worked? I have some hints: all emails from 'George Orwell, Publication Communication Aide' are spam. He's no longer with us for some time, and wasn't interested in chemistry anyway.
January 8, 2026 at 7:15 AM
Reposted by Marcin J. Suskiewicz
Our paper is out! Hiding in plain sight among Cas12a nucleases, Cas12a3 cleaves not its RNA target but the 3′ ends of tRNA. Huge thanks to all who made this possible, especially the Beisel lab, Biao & Dirk for the structure, & @sebastianglatt.bsky.social for all things tRNA. doi.org/10.1038/s415...
RNA-triggered Cas12a3 cleaves tRNA tails to execute bacterial immunity - Nature
Cas12a3 nucleases constitute a distinct clade of type V CRISPR–Cas bacterial immune systems that preferentially cleave the 3′ tails of tRNAs after recognition of target RNA to induce growth arres...
www.nature.com
January 7, 2026 at 4:15 PM
Much enjoyed this nice cryoEM study of NONO:SFPQ heterocomplex this morning, while it was snowing outside. So happy to read a paper in full again (only a handful of papers read in full in last weeks or even months ☹, and some were to review).
The gene-regulating proteins NONO and SFPQ assemble into ordered filaments - Communications Biology
Filament formation of full-length NONO/SFPQ heterodimers was observed and structurally characterized in vitro which may provide a scaffold for gene regulation, paraspeckle formation and DNA double-str...
www.nature.com
January 7, 2026 at 11:49 AM