#microsky #phagesky #phage #microbiomesky
Molecular adhesins from gut #phages
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Molecular adhesins from gut #phages
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org
February 3, 2026 at 6:09 AM
#microsky #phagesky #phage #microbiomesky
Molecular adhesins from gut #phages
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Molecular adhesins from gut #phages
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Pseudomonas aeruginosa senses exopolysaccharide trails using type IV pili and adhesins during biofilm formation by O'Toole, Parsek, & Wong groups www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Pseudomonas aeruginosa senses exopolysaccharide trails using type IV pili and adhesins during biofilm formation - Nature Microbiology
Opposing forces generated by exopolysaccharide trail binding versus type IV pilus retraction generate a high cyclic diGMP–high cyclic AMP state in Pseudomonas aeruginosa that promotes social motility.
www.nature.com
September 6, 2025 at 8:33 AM
Pseudomonas aeruginosa senses exopolysaccharide trails using type IV pili and adhesins during biofilm formation by O'Toole, Parsek, & Wong groups www.nature.com/articles/s41...
𝘗𝘴𝘦𝘶𝘥𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘴 fans take note 👇
"𝘗. 𝘢𝘦𝘳𝘶𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘰𝘴𝘢 senses EPS trails using type IV pili and adhesins during biofilm formation"
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#MicroSky
"𝘗. 𝘢𝘦𝘳𝘶𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘰𝘴𝘢 senses EPS trails using type IV pili and adhesins during biofilm formation"
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#MicroSky
October 9, 2025 at 11:26 PM
𝘗𝘴𝘦𝘶𝘥𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘴 fans take note 👇
"𝘗. 𝘢𝘦𝘳𝘶𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘰𝘴𝘢 senses EPS trails using type IV pili and adhesins during biofilm formation"
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#MicroSky
"𝘗. 𝘢𝘦𝘳𝘶𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘰𝘴𝘢 senses EPS trails using type IV pili and adhesins during biofilm formation"
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#MicroSky
Cool 🦠
William Schmidt
Gerard Wong Lab @UCLA
Nature Microbiology
Pseudomonas aeruginosa lays down Psl exopolysaccharide as it crawls
Other cells detect and follow these trails using type IV pili pulling against adhesins like CdrA triggering c-di-GMP & cAMP surges to shift into early biofilm mode
William Schmidt
Gerard Wong Lab @UCLA
Nature Microbiology
Pseudomonas aeruginosa lays down Psl exopolysaccharide as it crawls
Other cells detect and follow these trails using type IV pili pulling against adhesins like CdrA triggering c-di-GMP & cAMP surges to shift into early biofilm mode
Pseudomonas aeruginosa senses exopolysaccharide trails using type IV pili and adhesins during biofilm formation - Nature Microbiology
Opposing forces generated by exopolysaccharide trail binding versus type IV pilus retraction generate a high cyclic diGMP–high cyclic AMP state in Pseudomonas aeruginosa that promotes social motility.
www.nature.com
October 29, 2025 at 3:41 AM
Cool 🦠
William Schmidt
Gerard Wong Lab @UCLA
Nature Microbiology
Pseudomonas aeruginosa lays down Psl exopolysaccharide as it crawls
Other cells detect and follow these trails using type IV pili pulling against adhesins like CdrA triggering c-di-GMP & cAMP surges to shift into early biofilm mode
William Schmidt
Gerard Wong Lab @UCLA
Nature Microbiology
Pseudomonas aeruginosa lays down Psl exopolysaccharide as it crawls
Other cells detect and follow these trails using type IV pili pulling against adhesins like CdrA triggering c-di-GMP & cAMP surges to shift into early biofilm mode
Our new paper with @ckellison.bsky.social. is finally out!
We identify an ancient and widely conserved mechanism that promotes initiation of fiber polymerization in type IV pili and type II secretion systems.
We identify an ancient and widely conserved mechanism that promotes initiation of fiber polymerization in type IV pili and type II secretion systems.
β-strand addition within tip initiation complexes licenses assembly of diverse type IV filaments | PNAS
PilC/PilY1 proteins are tip-located adhesins of type IV pili (T4P) that are critical
for T4P function in diverse behaviors including twitching moti...
www.pnas.org
August 31, 2026 at 7:47 PM
Our new paper with @ckellison.bsky.social. is finally out!
We identify an ancient and widely conserved mechanism that promotes initiation of fiber polymerization in type IV pili and type II secretion systems.
We identify an ancient and widely conserved mechanism that promotes initiation of fiber polymerization in type IV pili and type II secretion systems.
Finally, our paper, "A Conserved Bacterial Genetic Basis for Commensal-Host Specificity," has been officially published in Science.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A conserved bacterial genetic basis for commensal-host specificity
Animals selectively acquire specific symbiotic gut bacteria from their environments that aid host fitness. To colonize, a symbiont must locate its niche and sustain growth within the gut. Adhesins are...
www.science.org
December 23, 2024 at 2:53 PM
Finally, our paper, "A Conserved Bacterial Genetic Basis for Commensal-Host Specificity," has been officially published in Science.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
De Novo Design of Miniprotein Inhibitors of Bacterial Adhesins https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.18.670751v1
August 19, 2025 at 4:16 AM
De Novo Design of Miniprotein Inhibitors of Bacterial Adhesins https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.18.670751v1
By looking at (and in some cases engineering) mutant bacteria lacking different adhesins, I discovered that one adhesion system, the type 4 pilus, was the one that triggered the host cell response.
55/
55/
April 24, 2025 at 5:22 PM
By looking at (and in some cases engineering) mutant bacteria lacking different adhesins, I discovered that one adhesion system, the type 4 pilus, was the one that triggered the host cell response.
55/
55/
Drosophila and Lactiplantibacillus plantarum in the spotlight (again), what a wonderful model (disclaimer I am biased ;-) ).
Congrats Will and team!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Congrats Will and team!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A conserved bacterial genetic basis for commensal-host specificity
Animals selectively acquire specific symbiotic gut bacteria from their environments that aid host fitness. To colonize, a symbiont must locate its niche and sustain growth within the gut. Adhesins are...
www.science.org
December 6, 2024 at 3:22 PM
Drosophila and Lactiplantibacillus plantarum in the spotlight (again), what a wonderful model (disclaimer I am biased ;-) ).
Congrats Will and team!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Congrats Will and team!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Keeping your symbiosis genes on a plasmid is a smart move if you have multiple potential hosts. Here a gut bacterial symbiont, but same is true for N-fixing Rhizobia.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A conserved bacterial genetic basis for commensal-host specificity
Animals selectively acquire specific symbiotic gut bacteria from their environments that aid host fitness. To colonize, a symbiont must locate its niche and sustain growth within the gut. Adhesins are...
www.science.org
December 7, 2024 at 1:17 PM
Keeping your symbiosis genes on a plasmid is a smart move if you have multiple potential hosts. Here a gut bacterial symbiont, but same is true for N-fixing Rhizobia.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Aeromonas adhesins facilitate kin and non-kin attachment to enable T6SS-mediated antagonism in liquid https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.27.701733v1
January 28, 2026 at 3:18 AM
Aeromonas adhesins facilitate kin and non-kin attachment to enable T6SS-mediated antagonism in liquid https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.27.701733v1
Pseudomonas aeruginosa senses exopolysaccharide trails using type IV pili and adhesins during biofilm formation
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Pseudomonas aeruginosa senses exopolysaccharide trails using type IV pili and adhesins during biofilm formation - Nature Microbiology
Opposing forces generated by exopolysaccharide trail binding versus type IV pilus retraction generate a high cyclic diGMP–high cyclic AMP state in Pseudomonas aeruginosa that promotes social motility.
www.nature.com
October 9, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Pseudomonas aeruginosa senses exopolysaccharide trails using type IV pili and adhesins during biofilm formation
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Wonderful Friday for a PhD thesis submission @jaisondsa.bsky.social @wehi-research.bsky.social
🩸Stabilized variants for zero-diagnostics
🦙Nanobodies against Plasmodium adhesins (watch this space)
Been incredible working with Jaison across the years and sharing co-supervision with Phillip Pymm
🩸Stabilized variants for zero-diagnostics
🦙Nanobodies against Plasmodium adhesins (watch this space)
Been incredible working with Jaison across the years and sharing co-supervision with Phillip Pymm
July 4, 2025 at 10:48 PM
Wonderful Friday for a PhD thesis submission @jaisondsa.bsky.social @wehi-research.bsky.social
🩸Stabilized variants for zero-diagnostics
🦙Nanobodies against Plasmodium adhesins (watch this space)
Been incredible working with Jaison across the years and sharing co-supervision with Phillip Pymm
🩸Stabilized variants for zero-diagnostics
🦙Nanobodies against Plasmodium adhesins (watch this space)
Been incredible working with Jaison across the years and sharing co-supervision with Phillip Pymm
Just published in @science.org with related Perspective by Françoise Jacob-Dubuisson.
Bacteria deliver a microtubule-binding protein into mammalian cells to promote colonization | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Bacteria deliver a microtubule-binding protein into mammalian cells to promote colonization | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Bacteria deliver a microtubule-binding protein into mammalian cells to promote colonization
Pathogenic Bordetella bacteria use protein adhesins to infect the ciliated respiratory epithelia of vertebrate hosts. In this work, we show that the filamentous hemagglutinin FhaB adhesin of Bordetell...
www.science.org
February 20, 2026 at 11:04 AM
Just published in @science.org with related Perspective by Françoise Jacob-Dubuisson.
Bacteria deliver a microtubule-binding protein into mammalian cells to promote colonization | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Bacteria deliver a microtubule-binding protein into mammalian cells to promote colonization | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A linear plasmid carrying adhesins and genes of unknown function mediates fruit fly's foregut colonization by a commensal microbe (Lactiplantibacillus plantarum). Similar islands are encoded in Streptococcus and Staphylococcus genomes.
Keeping your symbiosis genes on a plasmid is a smart move if you have multiple potential hosts. Here a gut bacterial symbiont, but same is true for N-fixing Rhizobia.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A conserved bacterial genetic basis for commensal-host specificity
Animals selectively acquire specific symbiotic gut bacteria from their environments that aid host fitness. To colonize, a symbiont must locate its niche and sustain growth within the gut. Adhesins are...
www.science.org
December 7, 2024 at 7:00 PM
A linear plasmid carrying adhesins and genes of unknown function mediates fruit fly's foregut colonization by a commensal microbe (Lactiplantibacillus plantarum). Similar islands are encoded in Streptococcus and Staphylococcus genomes.
Always great to see a paper on BioRxiv that reaches the same conclusions, using similar lines of evidence, to a paper that we put on BioRxiv 7 months ago and published in PNAS a month before theirs was posted — but doesn't cite our work.
Here's our paper.
Here's our paper.
β-strand addition within tip initiation complexes licenses assembly of diverse type IV filaments | PNAS
PilC/PilY1 proteins are tip-located adhesins of type IV pili (T4P) that are critical
for T4P function in diverse behaviors including twitching moti...
www.pnas.org
September 24, 2026 at 4:51 PM
Always great to see a paper on BioRxiv that reaches the same conclusions, using similar lines of evidence, to a paper that we put on BioRxiv 7 months ago and published in PNAS a month before theirs was posted — but doesn't cite our work.
Here's our paper.
Here's our paper.
Come by my poster B489 this afternoon or come see my talk at 4pm at room 515B and hear all about staph adhesins and their impact in antibiotic resistance 😌 @biophysicalsoc.bsky.social @rcbernardi.bsky.social #BPS2025
February 18, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Come by my poster B489 this afternoon or come see my talk at 4pm at room 515B and hear all about staph adhesins and their impact in antibiotic resistance 😌 @biophysicalsoc.bsky.social @rcbernardi.bsky.social #BPS2025
Excited to share my latest work in the @ramamurthilab.bsky.social, now in @cp-cellreports.bsky.social!
We show that division geometry organizes surface adhesins in S. aureus and enables the formation of abscess communities that protect bacteria from immune cells.
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
We show that division geometry organizes surface adhesins in S. aureus and enables the formation of abscess communities that protect bacteria from immune cells.
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
Orthogonal cell division mediated by PcdA organizes surface virulence factors to drive staphylococcal abscess community formation
Staphylococcus aureus divides along sequential orthogonal planes, but the function
of this geometry has remained unclear. Ramos-León et al. show that orthogonal division
promotes uniform deployment of...
www.cell.com
August 18, 2026 at 7:51 PM
Excited to share my latest work in the @ramamurthilab.bsky.social, now in @cp-cellreports.bsky.social!
We show that division geometry organizes surface adhesins in S. aureus and enables the formation of abscess communities that protect bacteria from immune cells.
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
We show that division geometry organizes surface adhesins in S. aureus and enables the formation of abscess communities that protect bacteria from immune cells.
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
Check out this article about my research at @embl.org where I focus on protein modelling and on the study of fibrillar adhesins. Recently, we developed a method to detect isopeptide bonds, a key stabilizing feature in bacterial proteins. Thanks @oanastroe.bsky.social for putting this together!👇 👇 👇
Meet Francesco Costa @atsocf.bsky.social 🇮🇹 – a PhD student at EMBL-EBI studying protein science.
Francesco is fascinated by protein design. His recent work helped ‘rescue’ low-confidence #AlphaFold protein structure predictions.
www.embl.org/news/people-...
🧬🧶#MolBiol
@ebi.embl.org
Francesco is fascinated by protein design. His recent work helped ‘rescue’ low-confidence #AlphaFold protein structure predictions.
www.embl.org/news/people-...
🧬🧶#MolBiol
@ebi.embl.org
We are EMBL: Francesco Costa on protein design and the EMBL PhD programme | EMBL
EMBL-EBI PhD student Francesco Costa talks about his work on protein structure predictions and the field of protein engineering.
www.embl.org
February 18, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Check out this article about my research at @embl.org where I focus on protein modelling and on the study of fibrillar adhesins. Recently, we developed a method to detect isopeptide bonds, a key stabilizing feature in bacterial proteins. Thanks @oanastroe.bsky.social for putting this together!👇 👇 👇
If you are around #bps2026 on Monday afternoon @biophysicalsoc.bsky.social come chat with me about the mechanobiology of bacterial adhesins probed by #singlemolecule and #MD simulations !
February 22, 2026 at 5:47 AM
If you are around #bps2026 on Monday afternoon @biophysicalsoc.bsky.social come chat with me about the mechanobiology of bacterial adhesins probed by #singlemolecule and #MD simulations !
Interesting new study in @science.org:
A conserved bacterial genetic basis for commensal-host specificity
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A conserved bacterial genetic basis for commensal-host specificity
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A conserved bacterial genetic basis for commensal-host specificity
Animals selectively acquire specific symbiotic gut bacteria from their environments that aid host fitness. To colonize, a symbiont must locate its niche and sustain growth within the gut. Adhesins are...
www.science.org
December 6, 2024 at 12:48 PM
Interesting new study in @science.org:
A conserved bacterial genetic basis for commensal-host specificity
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A conserved bacterial genetic basis for commensal-host specificity
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Nanobodies against malaria parasite adhesins that block receptor engagement and invasion
Lovely work by @jaisondsa.bsky.social and Jill Chmielewski on PfRh5, PfRh4 & PvRBP2b nanobodies + stabilized PfRh4 🦙🩸⛰️
Have a read, share widely and please give us feedback!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Lovely work by @jaisondsa.bsky.social and Jill Chmielewski on PfRh5, PfRh4 & PvRBP2b nanobodies + stabilized PfRh4 🦙🩸⛰️
Have a read, share widely and please give us feedback!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
May 25, 2026 at 10:16 AM
Nanobodies against malaria parasite adhesins that block receptor engagement and invasion
Lovely work by @jaisondsa.bsky.social and Jill Chmielewski on PfRh5, PfRh4 & PvRBP2b nanobodies + stabilized PfRh4 🦙🩸⛰️
Have a read, share widely and please give us feedback!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Lovely work by @jaisondsa.bsky.social and Jill Chmielewski on PfRh5, PfRh4 & PvRBP2b nanobodies + stabilized PfRh4 🦙🩸⛰️
Have a read, share widely and please give us feedback!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Here’s our first @iubiology.bsky.social public review of the semester! #PreprintReview via
@prereview.bsky.social @asapbio.bsky.social
Looking forward to discussion 🦠
@drdorsalomon.bsky.social
@basler-lab.bsky.social
& all authors! #Microsky #T6SS #Aeromonas prereview.org/reviews/1948...
@prereview.bsky.social @asapbio.bsky.social
Looking forward to discussion 🦠
@drdorsalomon.bsky.social
@basler-lab.bsky.social
& all authors! #Microsky #T6SS #Aeromonas prereview.org/reviews/1948...
PREreview of “Aeromonas adhesins facilitate kin and non-kin attachment to enable T6SS-mediated antagonism in liquid”
Authored by Aliz�e Malno� and 5 other authors
prereview.org
April 10, 2026 at 2:12 AM
Here’s our first @iubiology.bsky.social public review of the semester! #PreprintReview via
@prereview.bsky.social @asapbio.bsky.social
Looking forward to discussion 🦠
@drdorsalomon.bsky.social
@basler-lab.bsky.social
& all authors! #Microsky #T6SS #Aeromonas prereview.org/reviews/1948...
@prereview.bsky.social @asapbio.bsky.social
Looking forward to discussion 🦠
@drdorsalomon.bsky.social
@basler-lab.bsky.social
& all authors! #Microsky #T6SS #Aeromonas prereview.org/reviews/1948...