iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Jose M. Estevez @estevezjosem.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Finally out!! Beatifull work leaded by Arezo Rahimi and Salma Balazadeh group at University of Göttingen and colaborators showing the power of root hairs induced by Flavo98 to enhance drought tolerence in plants!! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.com

Endophytic Flavobacterium promotes root hair development and enhances drought tolerance via an ERF–CEP5 hormonal regulatory module - Nature Plants

Flavobacterium sp. 98 promotes root hair development and enhances plant drought tolerance via a novel signalling pathway, highlighting the role of plant–microorganism interactions for improving crop r...

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Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 25/07/2026

Admirable clarity @science.org

The Trump administration hates academic science funding, full stop. They hate where that money goes, and they hate who it goes to. They want to keep all that money for themselves, to hand out to favored cronies who can help them get elected and to steer yet more money and more power back into their hands.

That’s it. That’s the story

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Cees Dekker @ceesdekker.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

We built a a self-dividing synthetic cell ! Check out this #CDlab preprint on BioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Great work by 1st author Charu Sharma who encoded dynaminA in a genome and expressed that in liposomes that then divide into daughter cells! Collaboration with Koenderink lab!

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Noah Fierer @noahfierer.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

New preprint up: the power of protein language models - using a single gene (adenylate kinase) to predict the temperature optima of bacteria and bacterial communities from genomes or metagenomes www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.org

Predicting optimal growth temperatures of bacteria using learned structural information from a single protein

Temperature is a fundamental determinant of bacterial physiology and ecology. Optimal growth temperature (OGT) is highly variable across species, contributing to differences in where and when species ...

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Huge Effort of @justinecollier.bsky.social Lab for understanding GcrA methylase role on cell cycle of a relevant alpha model: Agrobacterium. Papers such as this one guide us in our Bradyrhizobium research! Congrats to the team for a sound paper! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.org

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

"Function-specific epistasis shapes evolutionary trajectories towards antibiotic resistance". Huge parallel experimental evolution effort in E. coli under antimicrobial pressure by @gabypetrungaro.bsky.social at Bollenbach Lab at University of Cologne. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

doi.org

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Tatiana Fajardo @tatiana1979.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

'Botanica No.23' by Gail Potocki

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Vibrio crassostreae and its phages interaction show complex evolutionary landscapes. Some pahge lineages show rapid turnover while others persist over years (lysogeny&slow decay)! Oysters are HGT hotspots! What about other Vibrio-host interactions? What about other bacteria-animal systems. Nice!

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Nora Bär @norabar.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

¡Buen lunes! Hoy ⛈️ 23° de máx. La Tierra está crecientemente "fuera de equilibrio", según un reporte de la Organización Meteorológica Mundial, q preside la argentina Celeste Saulo @CelesteSau4049 👇Acabamos de vivir los 11 años más cálidos desde que se llevan registros www.nature.com/articles/d41...

nature.com

The world just lived through the 11 hottest years on record — what now?

Earth is increasingly ‘out of balance’, as more heat is trapped in the atmosphere, driving global warming.

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Pedro Dorado-Morales @doradomoralesp.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

New preprint out on bioRxiv! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Can conjugative plasmids be used to control plasmid and pathogen spread? Follow me down the rabbit hole that led to this story 🧵

biorxiv.org

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Nice model! How many rRNA and tRNAs? Does it grow fast (DT<5hs.) how did you localize oriC and ter?

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

bsky.app/profile/alfm... And its out at Nucleic Acids Research!! Cheers!

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

It was a particular challenge to get this published from the far South! in the hard times for science we are living around the world but particularly in Argentina! I strongly believe that doing science is particularly valuable in this times , particularly from a peripherical country!

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

A new example on genes depending on their location to optimize cell functionning as shown by @martinlercher.bsky.social recently! We were able to rationally reduce the growth of vibrio in an isogenic context. Maybe a potential strategy to attenuate strains?!

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

We "cirurgically" dissected the locus to demostrante that most of the effect was specifically due to the rpoB and rpoC genes within the operon! We uncoupled the dosage of rpoB and rpoC from the rest of the locus!!

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

But apparently there are no major alterations in RNAP celular location upon rpoBC relocation! (a story to follow up using supreresolution!)

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

that was accompanied by a reduction in mRNA and protein levels (and rifampocin sensitivity!)

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Relocation was accompanied by a reduction in gene dosage due to multi-fork replication!

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

We relocated the whole locus to the chrosome termini in V. cholerae! (This bug has two chromosomes). We noticed a nutrient dependent reduction in fitness and growth rate upon rpoBC locus relocation!

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

In fast growing bacteria, transcription and translation genes are in close proximity of oriC. The core of the sole RNA polymerase is encoded by rpoB and rpoC genes. They form a locus well conserved in the tree of life along with ribosomal proteins and tRNAS! What happens if we alter this?

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Celebrating Next paper by Larotonda et al. ! Really proud of our next work on positional Genetics of RNA polymerase. More news soon on this!!

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

We thank this our institutions for supporting this 🇦🇷🇦🇺 collaboration! Thanks @unsamoficial.bsky.social @muche-macquarie.bsky.social And the many PhD Students and Posdocs implicated!

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

Our work establishes SCRaMbLE as a powerful bacterial genome engineering platform, opening new paths to study genome organization, evolution, and strain optimization.

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

Unexpectedly, some rearranged strains grew faster than the parental strain! These results reveal a striking phenotypic robustness to genome organization changes and support the idea that genome rearrangements can drive phenogenetic drift in bacteria.

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

After inducing rearrangements and selecting for fast growth, we found dramatically reconfigured genomes with stable physiology despite altered gene order. This technique enabled on‑demand, large‑scale genome rearrangements—inversions, duplications, and translocations across megabases.

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

We placed 14 loxPsym sites to enable inversions, duplications, and translocations while preserving near‑wild‑type fitness before rearrangement. Including essential genes allowed avoiding deletions.

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Aude Bernheim @audeber.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

Thanks to the authors of this piece. I love reading about the work of inspiring pioneers in bacterial genetics. Crazy amount of discoveries! Pioneer of bacterial genetics: the legacy of Esther Miriam Lederberg academic.oup.com/genetics/adv...

academic.oup.com

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

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Nora Bär @norabar.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Nuestros encuentros tempranos con bacterias son cruciales para el desarrollo de nuestro sistema inmunológico, muestra un estudio británico 👇 www.bbc.com/news/article...

bbc.com

Microbiome: First bacteria we meet can keep us out of hospital

For the first time, scientists show how our microbiome forms affects the risk of infection.

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

Great paper on replication dynamics in E. coli with more than one oriC. What would happen if we further add more oriCs?? frontiersin.org/journals/mic... Congrats Ole Skovgaad for this sound paper!!

frontiersin.org

Frontiers | An additional replication origin causes cell cycle specific DNA replication fork speed

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Nora Bär @norabar.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

La intervención de @VLeviLab ayer, en el Senado. También im-per-di-ble 👇 www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgTU...

youtube.com

VALERIA LEVY - COMISIÓN DE CIENCIA Y TECNOLOGÍA 04-06-25

YouTube video by Senado Argentina

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Jose M. Estevez @estevezjosem.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Here is our newest paper recently published in Plant Communications on "Root hair growth under the control of auxin under low temperature low nutrient environment". Comments and suggestions are more than welcome! Here the pdf www.cell.com/plant-commun... Leaded by Victoria Berdion Gabarain et al.

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STCmicrobeblog @stcmicrobeblog.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2... (sorry for being late with today's 𝘕𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘺. we are not "up, up and away" because of ascension day, we simply overslept 🤦‍♂️) #MicroSky

schaechter.asmblog.org

Gene Location Matters

Noteworthy — Bacterial genomes are not a laundry list of genes, but dynamic structures intimately connected with cellular function. As a result, natural selection has a heavy hand in shaping chromosom...

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Nora Bär @norabar.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

😍Un equipo de la UBA se ubicó entre los 5 mejores (de más de 100) en el mundial de “satélites enlatados”👇en la final del proyecto CanSat, organizado por la Universidad Nacional de México, con un satélite del tamaño de una lata que ellos mismos diseñaron y fabricaron 👇

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

Budget cuts do not curb our enthusiasm! Ian lab meeting today on Bradyrhizobium cell physiology! #LabMeetinDay

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

Escribime por DM. Si querés ver lo que hacemos visítanos en: asoler1.wixsite.com/iib-geb

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

Estas en 3-4° año de biotecnología o carreras afines? Estamos buscando un/a estudiante de @unsamoficial.bsky.social para incorporar al laboratorio y presentar a una beca de entrenamiento de la CIC PBA! Te interesa? Vení a trabajar con nosotros!! #UNSAM #Biotecnologia !!

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

What a huge story!!! Integrons are page resistance genes carriers!!! Not just silent " long term memory" geneyic structures!! Congrats two all the team!!

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Certainly a great place for a posdoctoral experience! Highly recommended!!!

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Alf Soler-Bistué 🦠🔬🧫 @alfmicrobe.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Huge story by @celineloot.bsky.social ! The chromosomal integrons are reservoirs of defense systems against Phages!

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