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Reposted by Laura Suttenfield

Michael Brockhurst @brockhurstlab.bsky.social · 2d

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

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John Dennehy @drjdennehy.bsky.social · 1d

www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

New entry into the Disability in Ecology and Evolution series in TREE featuring me :)

Disability in ecology and evolution

In this TrendsTalk series 'Disability in ecology and evolution' in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, we will be hearing from people about their experiences being disabled in ecology and evolution. We a...

www.cell.com

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Natalie Wright, Ph.D. @coereba.bsky.social · 1d

I have never been jealous of a Nobel prize winner before….

Jason Shepherd @jasonsynaptic.bsky.social · 1d

#goals

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Laura Suttenfield @lcatherines.bsky.social · 6d

congrats on getting this out! ☺️🙌 so nice to see a preview this summer, looking forward to reading the paper

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Nanami Kubota @nanamikubota.bsky.social · 6d

Published in Current Biology! P. aeruginosa can use its filamentous phage to inhibit competitors but high phage production is susceptible to cheater miniphage invasion. Subsequent phage tragedy of the commons can lower bacteria and phage fitness. Link: authors.elsevier.com/c/1lt5I3QW8S...

Nanami Kubota @nanamikubota.bsky.social · Apr 2

Preprint out! Bacteria w/ hyper-replicative filamentous phage lead to overnight emergence of cheater phages. Bacteria w/ both phages can outcompete wildtype, then rapidly lose phage via a phage Tragedy of the Commons
@shellyscrib.bsky.social @vscooper.micropopbio.org www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Filamentous cheater phages drive bacterial and phage populations to lower fitness

Many bacteria carry phage genome(s) in their chromosome (i.e., prophage), and this intertwines the fitness of the bacterium and the phage. Most Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains carry filamentous phages ...

www.biorxiv.org

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Vaughn Cooper @vscooper.micropopbio.org · 6d

DYK most P. aeruginosa carry filamentous phage(s) that don't need to kill the cell to reproduce?

We 👉🏻@nanamikubota.bsky.social show that these Pf phages can go ROGUE.

"Filamentous cheater phages drive bacterial and phage populations to lower fitness"

🔗 authors.elsevier.com/c/1lt5I3QW8S...

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Will Matlock @wtmatlock.bsky.social · 8d

Now published in @natcomms.nature.com 🎉

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

With Gillian Rodger, @nstoesser.bsky.social, @samlipworth.bsky.social, @stat-sarah.bsky.social, and many others!

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Kyle Card @kylejcard.bsky.social · 11d

Thrilled to share our paper that just came out in PNAS!

We asked a deceptively simple question: What happens when S. aureus adapts to vancomycin, a critical first-line antibiotic?

1/5

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Zamin Iqbal @zaminiqbal.bsky.social · 13d

Delighted to see our paper studying the evolution of plasmids over the last 100 years, now out! Years of work by Adrian Cazares, also Nick Thomson @sangerinstitute.bsky.social - this version much improved over the preprint. Final version should be open access, apols.
Thread 1/n

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Louise Roer @louiseroer.bsky.social · 20d

✨Célia Souque just showcased the outcomes of the 12th Microbial Bioinformatics Hackathon at IMMEM XIV.

She brilliantly presented the first sneak-peek of PORT – Plasmid Outbreak Reporting Tool! 🧬
Looking forward to continuing this collaboration with PORT!

#IMMEM #Hackathon #Plasmids #ESGEM #ESGMAP

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Bram van Dijk 🏳️‍🌈 @bramvandijk.bsky.social · 23d

Does anyone know a gene in E. coli that duplicated "fairly recently", as to compare and contrast it's sequence divergence with that found in mobile elements?

#sciencesky #microsky

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Eduardo Rocha @epcrocha.bsky.social · Sep 8

Willing to join us @pasteur.fr for a PhD for a project on how interactions between mobile genetic elements shape bacterial adaptation? Subject to be tailored to candidates with keen interest in evolution, genomics, computational biology, microbiology. Check www.pasteur.fr/en/education...

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bioRxiv Microbiology @biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · 24d

A One Health study of Klebsiella pneumoniae species complex plasmids shows a highly diverse and ecologically adaptable plasmidome https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.14.676155v1

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Matthew Saunders @mjsaunder.bsky.social · 28d

So...what would happen to the global TB epidemic if we hypothetically "eliminated" undernutrition? In this preprint, we combined estimates from our new review (doi.org/10.1093/ije/...) with population-specific BMI distributions to find out...(doi.org/10.1101/2025...)

Global, regional, and national estimates of tuberculosis incidence averted by eliminating undernutrition in adults: a modelling study

Background Current efforts to reduce global tuberculosis incidence have proved insufficient, highlighting that urgent action is needed to address underlying modifiable risk factors such as undernutrit...

doi.org

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James Kosmopoulos @kosmopoulos.bsky.social · 23d

This past year, my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. On October 5th, our family will walk together as Team Kosmo at Moving Day Chicago to celebrate his strength and support everyone living with Parkinson's.

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Sofya Garushyants @garushyants.bsky.social · 23d

hey bluesky 👋 visa hurdles mean I’m looking for opportunities outside the US. I’m a computational biologist (bacterial + phage genomics, postdoc in Koonin’s group @ NIH). I am interested in teaming up on funding apps. reach out if this resonates!

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Mike Blazanin @mikeblazanin.bsky.social · Sep 8

Happy to see this paper finally out in @pnas.org!

#phage #microbiology #MicroSky #VirEvol 🦠 🧫 🔬

Gift link: www.pnas.org/eprint/YYDZ9...

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Laura Suttenfield @lcatherines.bsky.social · Sep 9

Congratulations! 🎉☺️

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Zamin Iqbal @zaminiqbal.bsky.social · Sep 7

For anyone who has used pling for comparing plasmids using rearrangement distances ("how many structural events apart are these plasmids"), here's how to tweak parameters, and integrate it with typing info, and the host phylogeny
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
github.com/iqbal-lab-or...

Clustering of plasmid genomes for genomic epidemiology by using rearrangement distances, with pling

Integration of plasmids into genomic epidemiology is challenging, because there are no clearly defined evolving-units (equivalent to species), and because plasmids appear to evolve as much by structur...

www.biorxiv.org

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Michael Baym @baym.lol · Sep 1

What was antibiotic resistance like before we ever used antibiotics? How did we change what antibiotic resistance genes looked like over 100 years?

Our paper looking at resistance genes from a century of NCTC historical isolates now out in mGen:
www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

Genomic resistance in historical clinical isolates increased in frequency and mobility after the age of antibiotics

Antibiotic resistance is frequently observed shortly after the clinical introduction of an antibiotic. Whether and how frequently that resistance occurred before the introduction is harder to determin...

www.microbiologyresearch.org

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Kaitlin Schaal @evokait.bsky.social · Sep 3

Plasmids can be lost from a bacterial community even under positive environmental selection: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Species interactions determine plasmid persistence in a 3-member bacterial community

Microbial communities are shaped by complex forces, including interspecies interactions and the effects of mobile genetic elements such as plasmids. How these forces interact to affect community respo...

doi.org

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Laura Suttenfield @lcatherines.bsky.social · Sep 4

Super excited to read! Congrats on getting this out!

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Siân Owen @sianowen.bsky.social · Aug 28

An inspiring read!
academic.oup.com/genetics/adv...
A beautiful historical perspective on Ester Lederberg's legacy from @ccwendling.bsky.social & @zacharybailey.bsky.social

Pioneer of bacterial genetics: the legacy of Esther Miriam Lederberg

Abstract. Esther Miriam Lederberg's brilliant scientific lifework, from the discovery of phage lambda, bacterial conjugation, and replica plating, provided

academic.oup.com

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James McInerney @jomcinerney.bsky.social · Aug 29

New preprint reveals bacteria can't just collect all resistance genes like Pokemon cards.
We found mutually exclusive evolutionary pathways to multidrug resistance in E. coli & P. aeruginosa - some resistance mechanisms actively prevent others from coexisting www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Genomic constraints shape the evolution of alternative routes to drug resistance in prokaryotes

Background Variation within the prokaryotic pangenome is not random, and natural selection that favours particular combinations of genes appears to dominate over random drift. What is less clear is wh...

www.biorxiv.org

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Laura Suttenfield @lcatherines.bsky.social · Aug 28

Impulse or a very fast yet brilliant decision?

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