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These tailspikes are loosely associated with the virion and readily dissociate, allowing them to lyse biofilm matrix. What an astonishing way of a virion-assisted delivery of effector proteins! How many more of these biofilm-targeting tailspikes are there?

Four years ago I got a Wellcome Trust fellowship to explore how gene transfer agents, particles that evolved from phages to facilitate horizontal gene transfer, assemble differently. And we discovered they assemble biofilm-targeting tailspikes around their tail www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

It is! Has it started ejecting the genome? Oh no, that's a bush...

#vom2026 mural, work in progress - taken on Monday

#vom2026 but I am not presenting, instead I was invited to do something way more cool. Update soon

I am very proud to my student Stasia whose manuscript about the nucleocapsid assembly of an ephemerovirus is now available to read. Within three years she managed to defend her thesis, submit the manuscript and secure a postdoc job, while adapting to the UK weather! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Cryo-electron microscopy structure of the bovine ephemeral fever virus RNA-nucleoprotein assemblyBovine ephemeral fever virus (BEFV), a member of the Rhabdoviridae family, is an arthropod-borne pathogen that causes acute febrile disease in cattle. The structural basis of its genome encapsidation ...www.biorxiv.org

Celebrating 50 years of ysbl and structural biology in York, seeing all former colleagues including @cryingem.bsky.social and @poojag96.bsky.social And it was a perfect occasion for summarizing outcomes of my Wellcome fellowship. Thanks all for organizing!

You know exactly when your auto zlp f×cked things up and when you noticed and fixed it (at 5am).

Great work run by @emmajbanks.bsky.social and @tunglejic.bsky.social showing that the gta lytic system in caulobacter evolved from a phage antidefence system. It was fun to collect tomo of these at SLAC and segment them with Mai at YSBL. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A bacterial CARD–NLR-like immune system controls the release of gene transfer agents - Nature MicrobiologyAn immunity-like system functions as a lysis control hub to promote gene transfer agent particle release from host bacterial cells, suggesting that bacterial immune systems may be co-opted to promote ...www.nature.com

We identified a new type of what seems to be a gene transfer agent in the most abundant gut microbe. Long read sequencing was the key here, as it showed suspiciously many 4kb and 8kb reads, which fits the smallest T=3 shrinked and T=3 regular capsids. And indeed, GTAs! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Was invited to give a talk about tomography at ccp4 summer school. The most important slide is done

Same screen, three weeks later. At SLAC they sure know how to teach you to fib mill. Now, how to interpret the #tomo data?

My second visit to SLAC-Stanford to learn more about cryoET. Look at the size of that screen! This is going to be fun!

We still have space for additional attendees, and we encourage you to share this invitation within your networks so others can benefit from the fantastic panel we have assembled for this edition. Better program than your favourite paid conference - just saying 😉

Could an immune system control release of gene transfer agents? Contributed here with tomograms of Caulobacter (check the beautiful segmentations done by my PhD student Mai) showcasing how the cell envelope changes when the immune system is present vs absent.

What about your Easter Monday? #cryoem #remote #SLAC

First time I am seeing holes in my aromatics, collected at #SLAC temalpha #cryoem. Full story hopefully by the end of the summer!

Penton blooming of Ebor now on the cover of the April issue of mBio. #cryoET of #virus infection in toto

"You cannot take a dewar from York to Leeds without a car!" "Hold my pint, mate!" #cryoEM @astburycentre.bsky.social

In toto #CryoET shows that Ebor, the representative of a single jelly roll fold #virus lineage, uses five receptor-binding protrusions to bring a single #capsid penton closer to the #host membrane, triggering subunits dissociation from the centre - penton blooming. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...