Very happy to share that a large part of my thesis work is out today: B. subtilis uses the second messenger c-di-AMP to modulate its turgor pressure in response to the state of its cell envelope.

RT @JorgStulke: The SubtiWiki Paper of the month for June 2025 has been selected! .Congratulations, @apbrogan @ @harvardmed .@NatureMicrobi….

RT @NatureMicrobiol: Out Now! Cyclic-di-AMP modulates cellular turgor in response to defects in bacterial cell wall synthesis https://t.co/….

This was a great collaboration with Dr. Paola Bardetti and Dr. Rico Rojas at NYU. With their help, we provide evidence that c-di-AMP functions to control the cytoplasmic turgor pressure. The c-di-AMP mediated reduction in turgor protects cells from lysis.

In short, there is: the cyclase/regulator complex CdaAR upregulates cyclic-di-AMP in response to defects in cell wall synthesis. Similar to other envelope stress response systems in B. subtills, the cyclase regulator CdaR uses an intrinsically disordered region to sense defects.

c-di-AMP has long been implicated in resistance to cell wall targeting antibiotics. We hypothesized that there could be a regulatory connection between the cell envelope and c-di-AMP levels.

RT @ernstschmidd: Very excited to share that my thesis work is out in Molecular Cell! We trained a Structure and Omics informed Classifier….

RT @BostonBacteria: SAVE THE DATE ‼️ 📆 📢.BBM 2025 will be held on June 9-10th at the Harvard Science Center feat. the one and only Dr. Pet….

Angelika Gründling’s work from her sabbatical in the Bernhardt-Rudner labs is out! She came with the goal of finding the missing G+ phosphatidylglycerol phosphate phosphatase and found it with time to spare. I can also highly recommend her as a bay mate!

RT @tjflemin: Stem cell-like states confer poor outcomes in blood cancer—but what mechanisms drive this and how can they be therapeutically….

RT @ThomasMBartlett: The Bartlett Lab is open for business at the Wadsworth Center! We study pathogens with "unusual" shapes (balls & corks….

I had a lovely time getting to hear some fantastic talks and share my own work at the John Innes Centre yesterday! So much exciting microbiology happening.

RT @ernstschmidd: Make publication ready figures from your #AlphaFold PAE files. Works on multimer and AlphaFold 3 files. Customize colors….

RT @ernstschmidd: Interactively browse all the predicted structures here:

RT @ernstschmidd: Excited to share that our new preprint is out! We used #AlphaFold multimer to screen 7000+ nuclear proteins to find new n….

another great year for @BostonBacteria! huge shoutout to all of the presenters, the OC, and to @LaurentDubois99 and Molly Sargen for running the whole show (& for incredible crisis management when BBM went dark)

RT @ernstschmidd: Riding the #AlphaFold3 wave with a new analysis tool. It’s super new/unpolished, but would love to get community feedback….

RT @maxjaderberg: Super excited to be releasing AlphaFold 3 today, developed by @IsomorphicLabs and @GoogleDeepMind: our next generation AI….

RT @EvolvedBiofilm: Bacillus subtilis uses the SigM signaling pathway to prioritize the use of its lipid carrier for cell wall synthesis. @….

Impressive work on a classifier to distinguish likely true AF-multimer predictions from false positives. A bacterial classifier next please!.