Inlay

New paper alert!! We just discovered a new filament system that is widespread exclusively within CPR bacteria! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6.... Short thread below. 🦠🔬🚀

The Candidate Phyla Radiation (CPR) represents a bacterial superphylum estimated to include between 15–50% of all bacterial species, yet CPR bacteria remain challenging to culture and have been primar...

Very sad to learn that Steve White has passed away.

And we have updated the bioRxiv deposition with the current version of the story (and an extensive supplement). More structures, more AlphaFold modelling, more discussion: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Congrats Prof Alain Filloux, SCELSE Research Director, on his appointment as President’s Chair in Molecular Microbiology at NTU. One of the University's highest academic honours, this recognises his scientific achievements, leadership, and contributions to microbiology. @fillouxlab.bsky.social

Interesting! Deserves a careful reading, for sure. But still, the level of self-citations (nearly 25% of the whole reference list) is remarkable ... 😏

While the SecYEG-YidC manuscript is progressing towards publishing (on paper, for real!), the model of the active complex is already accessible (more to come): www.rcsb.org/structure/9RBF

SCELSE - a biofilm & microbiome research centre in NTU & NUS

As part of @sfb1638.bsky.social in 𝐌𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠, we are committed to developing computational tools that make complex membrane simulations more accessible, reproducible, and scalable for the scientific community. Today, we are happy to share the public release of 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐌𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫 v1.2.1

A fantastic opportunity here! If you are a skilled AND devoted person - apply fast! Florian @faltegoer.bsky.social is a great person to work with, the campus @hhu.de is lovely, and you have a Botanical garden just in front of the Institute🤩

As promised: We have an open 2-year postdoc position in my lab at HHU Düsseldorf, starting September 2026. Come join us and help pioneering structural biology of fungal GPCRs! More about the lab: altegoerlab.de Apply here: karriere.hhu.de/index.php?ac... Please share with interested candidates!

Structure of a stalled E. coli 70S RNC-NuoK-86 in complex with the membrane protein insertase SecYEG-YidC

Hiring: Junior Group Leader (f) in Protein Science — CRC 1664 SNP2Prot, MLU Halle. Lead your own group + budget, funded PhD, world-class protein-structure facilities. 5 yrs, E14. Apply by 7 July 2026. snp2prot.uni-halle.de #ProteinScience #SNP2Prot #AcademicJobs

That celebration has waited for a long time... One year ago we uploaded the preprint and started the endeavor through the peer-reviewing. Lots of emotions on the way 🎭, lots of work, and quite some learning on "friend or foe"... Probably, deserves another post 🤫 But now - the paper is accepted!

We just received funding for a 2yr postdoc position on cryoEM of fungal gpcrs. Official call will open soon. Contact me if you‘re interested!

Very special feelings to announce this one... A project that started like 10 years ago is reaching the finish line, ready to shine. In a dream-team with @beckmannlab.bsky.social we solved the long-chased structure of the active membrane protein insertase SecYEG-YidC www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The universally conserved Sec translocon and the YidC/Oxa1-type insertases mediate biogenesis of alpha-helical membrane proteins, but the molecular basis of their cooperation has remained disputed over decades. A recent discovery of a multi-subunit insertase in eukaryotes has raised the question about the architecture of the putative bacterial ortholog SecYEG-YidC and its functional mechanism. Here, we combine cryogenic electron microscopy with cell-free protein synthesis in nanodiscs to visualize biogenesis of the polytopic membrane protein NuoK, the subunit K of NADH-quinone oxidoreductase, that requires both SecYEG and YidC for insertion. We demonstrate that YidC is recruited to the back of the translocon at the late stage of the substrate insertion, in resemblance to the eukaryotic system, and in vivo experiments indicate that the complex assembly is vital for the cells. The nascent chain does not utilize the lateral gate of SecYEG, but enters the lipid membrane at the SecYE-YidC interface, with YidC being the primary insertase. SecYEG-YidC complex promotes folding of the nascent helices at the interface prior their insertion, so the examined cellular pathway follows the fundamental thermodynamic principles of membrane protein folding. Our data provide the first detailed insight on the elusive insertase machinery in the physiologically relevant environment, highlight the importance of the nascent chain for its assembly, and prove the evolutionary conservation of the gate-independent insertion route. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, https://ror.org/018mejw64, Ke1879/3, 267205415 (CRC 1208) European Research Council, https://ror.org/0472cxd90, CRYOTRANSLATION

Pretty cool!! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/... Last year, we showed that membranes can be asymmetric in an unexpected way: more phospholipids on one side than the other, balanced by cholesterol asymmetry. Here, Bogdanov et al show similar in EColi, with DAG doing cholesterol's flippy-buffering job

Der Biologe Dr. Florian Altegoer vom Institut für Mikrobiologie der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf (HHU) erhält einen mit 210.000 Euro dotierten „Exploration Grant“ der Boehringer Ingelheim Stiftung (BIS).

Transmembrane (TM) asymmetry of glycerophospholipids in the plasma membrane is well established, yet still a complex and evolving area of study regarding the exact mechanisms, magnitude, and compositi...

Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf