Inlay

How do human cells defend against viruses? @sgfern.bsky.social discovers that human immune proteins named ISGs target ancient features of replication shared between animal and bacterial viruses – opening analysis of human immunity to the power of bacterial genetics www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

From creating structural biology pipelines to investigating DNA mismatch repair, it's been an insightful week in Crete for our Machines on Genes conference! Congratulations to our poster prize winners: Daniel, James, Manuel and Emma for their fantastic presentations. 🧪

🧵As the name suggests the medieval Hospitium, York (part of St Mary's Abbey) would have been used for housing guests such as merchants and travellers who would not have stayed in the main body of the abbey with the monks. Originally, the Hospitium would have been much closer

The activation of an antiphage defence system relies on host factors targeted by phages, a mechanism analogous to the way that eukaryotic innate immune systems detect pathogen-induced perturbations of...

Our paper on the YprA family of helicases and their roles in bacterial defence is now out! We describe ARMADA, a defence system synergise with Druantia and show that both systems spread horizontally on a novel type of mobile genetic element that we call SPIDERs www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Very happy that this piece of research finally sees the daylight! Super nice collaboration between Nanjing, York and Helsinki. Fun fact: we started this work over 10 years ago when I was working as a fellow at Imperial College. Sometimes good things come to those who wait.

Condensin I, not II, is vital for mitotic chromosome mechanics. Disruption alters stiffness, impacting the cell division process as observed using live imaging and rapid protein depletion. PMID:42115596, Nat Commun 2026, @NatureComms https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-72825-7 #Medsky #Pharmsky 🧪

To prepare for DNA replication, a short region of DNA base-pairs must be broken, termed melting, allowing a helicase to gain a foothold on an isolated DNA strand. Here, authors use single-particle cry...

We are only beginning to understand the breadth of enzyme diversity in the archaeal world. Here's an example of how an archaeon can deploy a phospholipase to kill certain bacteria... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🌿🧬 Ancient polyploidy events cluster around major environmental crises like the K-Pg extinction, PETM & Eocene-Oligocene Transition. Polyploids may have better survival odds during rapid climate change. Lessons from 132 dated WGD events in 470 angiosperms #plantscience www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Archaea kill bacteria, at least on occasion. The molecular underpinnings of these lethal interactions are barely understood. Here, we describe cinquedea, an α/β hydrolase secreted by the halophilic ar...

Archaea are the hornets of the microbial world. Discuss. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... TLDR: Archaeon kills bacterium with secreted phospholipase. Pretty nifty way to kill bacteria for a microbe with a very different lipid make-up, I reckon. No need to worry about accidentally killing yourself.

During mitotic cell division, pliable interphase chromatin is transformed into stiff mitotic chromosomes able to withstand the pushing and pulling forces of the mitotic spindle. How the cell establishes this chromosome stiffness and the cellular consequences if this stiffness is disrupted, is unclear. Condensin complexes drive many of the structural changes in mitotic chromosomes. Here, we combine rapid protein depletion of Condensins I and II with live cell imaging and mechanical characterization of purified mitotic chromosomes to probe their role in mitotic chromosome mechanics. We show that Condensin I, but not Condensin II, is required to establish chromosome stiffness and chromatin elasticity, and yet is not required for maintaining these properties after chromosome formation. Nevertheless, metaphase depletion of Condensin I still leads to severe sister centromere cohesion defects. We propose that the chromatin loop network established by Condensin I is locked in place by an addit

Nature Microbiology, Published online: 12 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41564-026-02373-9Phage–bacteria coevolution is associated with field-specific anti-phage defence and locally adapted phage populations, resulting in phage-resistant but weakly virulent pathogens.

From the dating of 132 ancient whole-genome duplication events across 470 angiosperms, paleopolyploidization events cluster around pivotal periods of environmental upheaval and extinction, notably the...