Michael Brockhurst
@brockhurstlab.bsky.social
3.4K followers 4.2K following 390 posts
Microbial evolution / University of Manchester
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brockhurstlab.bsky.social
New preprint!

Ever wondered why only a fraction of genomes encode CRISPR immunity? 🧬 🦠

Turns out CRISPR is rarely beneficial against virulent phages, being most beneficial against those for which resistance mutations are rare!

An epic effort by Rosanna Wright

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Resistance mutation supply modulates the benefit of CRISPR immunity against virulent phages
Only a fraction of bacterial genomes encode CRISPR-Cas systems but the selective causes of this variation are unexplained. How naturally virulent bacteriophages (phages) select for CRISPR immunity has...
www.biorxiv.org
Reposted by Michael Brockhurst
filiphusnik.bsky.social
OIST is seeking up to four tenure-track or tenured faculty in Ecology, Environmental Science, Earth Science, and Oceanography. Application deadline: Oct 15. Please share. Thx!
www.oist.jp/careers/facu...
brockhurstlab.bsky.social
Thanks!

For phages where resistance mutation supply is high, resistance mutation dominates and CRISPR plays no role in survival. Whereas, for phages where resistance mutation supply is sufficiently low, CRISPR (rarely) permits population survival. It’s a numbers game!
brockhurstlab.bsky.social
PS Simon’s tail fibre protein structure models showing the variants causing altered surface receptor binding specificity are Lovell-y
Reposted by Michael Brockhurst
cazares-adr.bsky.social
Fusions 🧬🔄 are particularly fascinating because they tend to be massive in size, but most are single instances, suggesting they are only brief snapshots 📸 in time.
Plus, if you try to track what has fused with what... well, it's utter chaos!
So the process is highly dynamic.
Reposted by Michael Brockhurst
cazares-adr.bsky.social
Imagine we could travel back in time ⏪⌛️to explore the world of bacterial pathogens before humans discovered and industrialised antibiotics

We just did that to study the history of #AMR spread @science.org
doi.org/10.1126/scie...

If you like time travel & biology, this 🧵is for you👇
Pre- and postantibiotic epoch: The historical spread of antimicrobial resistance
Plasmids are now the primary vectors of antimicrobial resistance, but our understanding of how human industrialisation of antibiotics influenced their evolution is limited by a paucity of data predati...
doi.org
Reposted by Michael Brockhurst
tunglejic.bsky.social
Independent research fellowships leading to tenured positions at the John Innes Centre.

Repost = nice. Thank you very much!!!
johninnescentre.bsky.social
Shortlisted candidates will be invited to give a seminar at the Fellows Conference, which will be held on 10 March 2026.

Candidates who win Fellowships will be offered a Tenure Track Group Leader position from the outset, initially for 5 years.

Find out more: www.jic.ac.uk/training-car...
Independent Research Fellowships Leading to Tenured Faculty Positions | John Innes Centre
The John Innes Centre (JIC), is a world leading centre of excellence in plant and microbial sciences based on the Norwich Research Park, UK. We are inviting applications from outstanding researchers…
www.jic.ac.uk
brockhurstlab.bsky.social
Thanks Zam! All credit to Rosanna 💪
brockhurstlab.bsky.social
5-years in the making this paper has been a real journey!

Also, a fun collaboration with @frimanscience.bsky.social @jofoth.bsky.social Edze Westra, Simon Lovell, Aras Kadioglu

#mevosky #phagesky
brockhurstlab.bsky.social
For LPS phages we identified the genetic basis of the variation: a handful of amino acid changes affecting H-bonding residues at the tip of tail fibre protein which altered the binding site from O-antigen (high rate of resistance mutation) to LPS core (low rate)
brockhurstlab.bsky.social
Rosanna designed a high-throughput evolutionary screen with ~20k populations comparing CRISPR+ vs CRISPR- Pseudomonas against 351 phage treatments

Benefit of CRISPR varied among phages and increased 📈 as surface receptor resistance mutations supply decreased 📉
brockhurstlab.bsky.social
New preprint!

Ever wondered why only a fraction of genomes encode CRISPR immunity? 🧬 🦠

Turns out CRISPR is rarely beneficial against virulent phages, being most beneficial against those for which resistance mutations are rare!

An epic effort by Rosanna Wright

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Resistance mutation supply modulates the benefit of CRISPR immunity against virulent phages
Only a fraction of bacterial genomes encode CRISPR-Cas systems but the selective causes of this variation are unexplained. How naturally virulent bacteriophages (phages) select for CRISPR immunity has...
www.biorxiv.org
Reposted by Michael Brockhurst
veeninglab.com
Finally out, such an awesome piece of work, very proud of this one: www.cell.com/cell-systems... #MicroSky
brockhurstlab.bsky.social
Have they heard of Pseudomonas? Gonna be 🤯
Reposted by Michael Brockhurst
tobiaswarnecke.bsky.social
Become my colleague @oxfordbiochemistry.bsky.social !
2 Associate Professorships in the areas of
- prokaryotic/eukaryotic microbiology
- metabolism

my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...
Job Details
my.corehr.com
Reposted by Michael Brockhurst
Reposted by Michael Brockhurst
bugsinblood.bsky.social
Now published! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Very nice collaboration with Hoogenboom ( @ucl.ac.uk ) and Bonev ( @uniofnottingham.bsky.social ) labs.