Erez Yirmiya @erezyirmiya.bsky.social · 25/04/2026TIR domains across diverse eukaryotes are enzymatically active. Especially interesting is the human TLR4 TIR, long thought to be enzymatically inactive, now shown to be catalytically active and to produce cADPR, a molecule involved in immunity across domains of life. Congrats, Bohdana!! 150
Erez Yirmiya @erezyirmiya.bsky.social · 26/03/2026Honored to be part of the 2026 cohort and looking forward to the journey ahead! @schmidtfellows.bsky.social 071
Erez Yirmiya @erezyirmiya.bsky.social · 04/02/2026The plot thickens! Exciting new discoveries in the NAD⁺ centric battlefield between bacteria and phages. Congrats, Ilya! 161
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaFrançois Rousset @francoisrousset.bsky.social · 04/12/2025A massive expansion of Thoeris defense systems ! Congrats @erezyirmiya.bsky.social and @soreklab.bsky.social 071
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaOsterman Ilya @ostermanilya.bsky.social · 04/12/2025New Thoeris systems and new bacterial TIRs, this time also producing plant and human immune signals 2'cADPR and cADPR!!! Congratulations to @erezyirmiya.bsky.social and Azita Leavitt! It was a pleasure to be involved in this project. 0134
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaBohdana Hurieva🇺🇦 @bhurieva.bsky.social · 04/12/2025New Thoeris systems reveal a deep connection between bacterial TIR-produced immune signals to plant and human immunity🦠🌱🧍♀️ It was a great honor to contribute to this project! Congratulations to @erezyirmiya.bsky.social and Azita Leavitt!!🎉🥂 0102
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaSorek Lab @soreklab.bsky.social · 04/12/2025Preprint: Systematic discovery of TIR-based immune signaling systems in bacteria Conservation of TIR-derived signals accross the tree of life! We found bacterial TIR immune systems that signal via canonical cADPR (like in humans) and 2'cADPR (a plant immune signal). Documented 11 Thoeris types 13413
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaRomi Hadary @romihadary.bsky.social · 04/12/2025Incredible to learn how far-reaching and diverse Thoeris really is! TIRs play key roles across kingdoms, and this work beautifully highlights their bacterial origins. Congrats @erezyirmiya.bsky.social & Azita! 👏🌟 051
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaGal Ofir @galofir.bsky.social · 04/12/2025Thoeris - the gift that keeps on giving 🦠🎁! Congrats Erez, Azita et al.! 1122
Erez Yirmiya @erezyirmiya.bsky.social · 04/12/2025I’m happy to share our new preprint! We uncovered the full diversity of bacterial TIR-based antiviral immune signaling, massively expanded the known diversity of Thoeris systems, and revealed conservation of TIR-derived immune signals across the tree of life. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...biorxiv.orgSystematic discovery of TIR-based immune signaling systems in bacteriaToll/interleukin-1 receptor (TIR) domains are important for immune signaling across humans, plants and bacteria. These domains were recently found to produce immune signaling molecules in plant immuni... 27429
Erez Yirmiya @erezyirmiya.bsky.social · 06/11/2025Such a beautiful and well-rounded discovery, yet another exciting strategy in bacterial immunity. Congrats, Ilya! 040
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaJeremy Garb @garbjeremy.bsky.social · 02/09/2025📢 New preprint alert! We designed synthetic proteins that can block bacterial immune systems, allowing phages + plasmids to overcome natural defenses. This could transform phage therapy + genetic engineering. Here’s what we found 🧵 Preprint🔗: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...biorxiv.orgSynthetically designed anti-defense proteins overcome barriers to bacterial transformation and phage infectionBacterial defense systems present considerable barriers to both phage infection and plasmid transformation. These systems target mobile genetic elements, limiting the efficacy of bacteriophage-based t... 24624
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaSorek Lab @soreklab.bsky.social · 02/09/2025Preprint: De-novo design of proteins that inhibit bacterial defenses Our approach allows silencing defense systems of choice. We show how this approach enables programming of “untransformable” bacteria, and how it can enhance phage therapy applications Congrats Jeremy Garb! tinyurl.com/Syttt 🧵biorxiv.orgSynthetically designed anti-defense proteins overcome barriers to bacterial transformation and phage infectionBacterial defense systems present considerable barriers to both phage infection and plasmid transformation. These systems target mobile genetic elements, limiting the efficacy of bacteriophage-based t... 213970
Erez Yirmiya @erezyirmiya.bsky.social · 25/08/2025Congrats @romihadary.bsky.social and @reneechang.bsky.social for dissecting the functional diversity of ALL Sponges! 🧽 040
Erez Yirmiya @erezyirmiya.bsky.social · 01/08/2025An absolute masterpiece by the talented @dinahoch.bsky.social on nucleotide-based immunity 030
Erez Yirmiya @erezyirmiya.bsky.social · 13/07/2025Amazing work identifying novel immune inhibitors based on structural and genomic traits. Congrats Nitzan and everyone! 130
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaJason Nomburg @jnoms.bsky.social · 12/06/2025Hello everyone! I am pleased to share information on the first ever Computational Structural Virology Symposium, conducted August 4th on zoom and highlighting work in this emerging field. You can register for this event here: forms.gle/CNiqskMwQEuV.... Please re-post! 26952
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaMarcin J. Suskiewicz @msuskiewicz.eurosky.social · 14/04/2025This was our latest journal-club paper. Nice use of large-scale AlphaFold modelling & various experiments. Phage proteins’ ability to recognise eukaryotic homologues of their bacterial targets is striking - suggests these proteins evolved to recognise their targets in a fairly mutation-resistnt way. 1103
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaDor Salomon @drdorsalomon.bsky.social · 27/01/2025A fun collaboration with the Whitney, Prehna, and Bosis labs, in which we reveal the role of DUF2169 proteins: assisting PAAR-like domains in forming spike complexes and #T6SS assembly. 🦠 search.app/jDxaUi5yJK9B...search.appA conserved chaperone protein is required for the formation of a non-canonical type VI secretion system spike tip complexType VI secretion systems (T6SS) are dynamic protein nanomachines found in Gram-negative bacteria that deliver toxic effector proteins into target cells in a contact-dependent manner. Prior to secreti... 0216
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaDina Hochhauser @dinahoch.bsky.social · 24/01/2025Check out our latest paper using protein structures to uncover immune inhibitors hidden among millions of phage genes! These inhibitors block immune proteins from bacteria, plants and even humans, highlighting how immunity and counter-immunity mechanisms are conserved across the tree of life! 🦠🌿🧍♀️ 182
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaAude Bernheim @audeber.bsky.social · 24/01/2025Incredbile work from @soreklab.bsky.social demonstrating how to mine viral genomes to identify immune-modulatory proteins that work across bacteria, plants and animals 😱. Bacteria have been amazing ressources of molecular diversity for biotech and medicine, now viral diversity can be explored too! 1131
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaNonia Pariente @npariente.bsky.social · 24/01/2025Really cool! Remarkable that phage proteins can inhibit human and plant TIR proteins and human cGAS. Conservation of function across such long evolutionary distances identifies new immunomodulators Congrats to @soreklab.bsky.social and Kranzusch labs! What a great collaboration that is 😍 🧪 1214
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaSadie Antine @sadieantine.bsky.social · 23/01/2025Viral immune evasion proteins are widespread and block both bacterial and human immune proteins! Go check out Erez’s paper using AlphaFold-multimer to screen for new anti-defense proteins!!🤩🤩 1122
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaBen Adler @benadler.bsky.social · 23/01/2025Been waiting a long time to see this in print - phage proteins are capable of inhibiting immune systems across host-domain boundaries 🤯 Big congrats @erezyirmiya.bsky.social et al!! 161
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaAvigail Stokar-Avihail @aavihail.bsky.social · 23/01/2025I'm excited to see the published version of this amazing work. @erezyirmiya et al identified viral proteins that inhibit host immunity using structural predictions of protein-protein interactions. Congrats to you all @soreklab & Kranzusch lab! 🥂 162
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaFrançois Rousset @francoisrousset.bsky.social · 23/01/2025A high-throughput AlphaFold screen reveals phage proteins that bind and inhibit bacterial immune proteins 🤯 Some of them even bind and inhibit eukaryotic immune proteins as well ! Congrats @erezyirmiya.bsky.social @soreklab.bsky.social et al for these beautiful discoveries 👌 1163
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaSorek Lab @soreklab.bsky.social · 23/01/2025Our paper out @CellCellPress: Structure guided discovery of viral proteins that inhibit host immunity Congrats Erez Yirmiya, Azita Leavitt, Gil Amitai, our collaborators at the Kranzusch lab, and coauthors A 🧵 1/10 www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...cell.comStructure-guided discovery of viral proteins that inhibit host immunityLarge-scale, structure-guided computational pipeline sifts through millions of phage proteins to identify those that bind and antagonize host immune proteins. Detected proteins are shown to inhibit no... 120174
Erez Yirmiya @erezyirmiya.bsky.social · 23/01/2025I'm thrilled to announce our latest work is now published in Cell! Viruses encode numerous proteins that inhibit host defenses, but identifying immune-modulatory proteins among millions of viral sequences has been nearly impossible - until now! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... 716048
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaOsterman Ilya @ostermanilya.bsky.social · 21/11/2024Finally moved to #Bluesky and happy to share our recent work about a new phage anti-defense system, based on NAD reconstitution by new enzymatic reactions. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 812630
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaFrançois Rousset @francoisrousset.bsky.social · 11/11/2024Seems like a good time to finally move here ! Taking the opportunity to share our most recent work : www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...biorxiv.orgTIR signaling activates caspase-like immunity in bacteriaProteases of the caspase family, as well as Toll/Interleukin-1 Receptor (TIR)-domain proteins, have central roles in innate immunity and regulated cell death in humans. In this study we describe a bac... 0177
Reposted by Erez YirmiyaSorek Lab @soreklab.bsky.social · 14/11/2024Happy to see our paper out @ Nat Comm We discovered a bacterial NLR-like pattern recognition receptor that can sense 3 different viral proteins as a signature for infection. This explains its broad defense against different phage families Congrats Nathalie Béchon! www.nature.com/articles/s41...nature.comDiversification of molecular pattern recognition in bacterial NLR-like proteins - Nature CommunicationsAvs proteins are bacterial anti-phage pattern recognition receptors evolutionarily related to eukaryotic NLRs. Here, Béchon et al show that a single bacterial Avs can recognize different phage protein... 110153