Amar Deep
amardeeep.bsky.social
Amar Deep
@amardeeep.bsky.social
Structural biologist interested in microbial defense and anti-defense strategies!

https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=PkTFTiQAAAAJ
Reposted by Amar Deep
How is Condensin II activated during mitosis? 🧬

@damlatetiker.bsky.social Samejima et al. uncover how Condensin II autoinhibition is relieved by the mitotic activator M18BP1, and reveal that M18BP1 also forms a composite DNA anchor with the NCAPG2–NCAPH2 subcomplex to stabilize DNA loops in vitro.
www.biorxiv.org
February 4, 2026 at 3:34 PM
Reposted by Amar Deep
A DNA damage-activated kinase controls bacterial immune pathway expression https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.02.703251v1
February 4, 2026 at 4:16 AM
Reposted by Amar Deep
Jane Richardson was born #OTD in 1941

+ Developed the Richardson (ribbon) diagram to represent proteins' 3D structure (becoming a standard representation for protein structures)
+ MacArthur Fellow, 1985
+ Elected, Nat'l Academy of Sciences, 1991
+ President, Biophysical Society, 2012

#WomenInSTEM
January 26, 2026 at 12:06 AM
Reposted by Amar Deep
Pleased to announce that I've joined the editorial board of the Biochemical Journal portlandpress.com/biochemj as an associate editor. I'd love to receive manuscripts focussed on CRISPR, anti-viral defence, archaean biochemistry and nucleic acid processing enzymes.
@biochemsoc.bsky.social
Biochemical Journal | Portland Press
Exploring the molecular mechanisms that underpin key biological processes, the Biochemical Journal is a leading bioscience journal publishing high-impact scientific research papers and reviews in the ...
portlandpress.com
January 14, 2026 at 12:07 PM
Reposted by Amar Deep
Congratulations to Doi Basu @dwaipayanbasu.bsky.social for publishing his first first-author paper from the lab!
The cryoEM structure of a tubulin-like protein from bacteriophage Goslar forms "microtubules" with nine protofilaments!
authors.elsevier.com/a/1mM253SNvc...
authors.elsevier.com
December 30, 2025 at 5:35 AM
Reposted by Amar Deep
Now published. Thank you very much to our collaborative team, and very supportive editors and reviewers!!!

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Versatile NTP recognition and domain fusions expand the functional repertoire of the ParB-CTPase fold beyond chromosome segregation | PNAS
Nucleotide triphosphate (NTP)-dependent molecular switches regulate essential cellular processes by cycling between active and inactive states thro...
www.pnas.org
December 4, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Reposted by Amar Deep
Preprint: 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
December 4, 2025 at 1:56 PM
Reposted by Amar Deep
I’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...
Systematic discovery of TIR-based immune signaling systems in bacteria
Toll/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...
www.biorxiv.org
December 4, 2025 at 9:25 AM
Reposted by Amar Deep
🧬🛡️How are new immune mechanisms created?

We show how Lamassu antiphage system, originated from a DNA-repair complex and evolved into a compact and modular immune machine, wt Dinshaw Patel lab in @pnas.org.
👏 @matthieu-haudiquet.bsky.social, Arpita Chakravarti & all authors!

doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
November 27, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Reposted by Amar Deep
🚨Preprint alert - this is a big one! We transfer the revolutionary power of TnSeq to bacteriophages.

Our HIDEN-SEQ links the "dark matter" genes of your favorite phage to any selectable phenotype, guiding the path from fun observations to molecular mechanisms.

A thread 1/8
November 20, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Reposted by Amar Deep
Bacteria can sense when a virus starts shredding their genome — by detecting methylated mononucleotides.
Here’s the story of how we discovered the Metis defense system 👇
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
November 6, 2025 at 5:00 AM
Reposted by Amar Deep
You’ve heard of ubiquitination, meet deazaguanylation: Doug Wassarman in our lab discovered phage defense pathways have co-opted Q nucleobase biosynthetic enzymes to catalyze a new form of protein conjugation chemistry @science.org

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
September 25, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Another important contribution from Sorek and Blokesch labs.

This engineering strategy with synthetic inhibitors could yield more powerful phages than natural inhibitors, since the latter sometimes trigger other defense systems..
Preprint: 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
🧵
Synthetically designed anti-defense proteins overcome barriers to bacterial transformation and phage infection
Bacterial 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...
www.biorxiv.org
September 4, 2025 at 7:01 AM
Reposted by Amar Deep
The beautiful, ever-expanding universe of viral proteins targeting nucleotide immune signals!

Paper by @reneechang.bsky.social in @cp-molcell.bsky.social on a nucleotide sponge www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

and preprint by @doudna-lab.bsky.social on viral nucleases www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A widespread family of viral sponge proteins reveals specific inhibition of nucleotide signals in anti-phage defense
Chang et al. discover anti-CBASS 4 (Acb4), a family of viral sponges that inhibits bacterial immunity by sequestering nucleotide immune signals. Acb4 homologs in phages that infect hosts across all ma...
www.cell.com
August 22, 2025 at 9:02 PM
Reposted by Amar Deep
A widespread family of viral sponge proteins reveals specific inhibition of nucleotide signals in anti- #phage defense

www.cell.com/molecular-ce... #bacteriophage #MicroSky
August 22, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Reposted by Amar Deep
We wrote a review on the free nucleotide pool as a central playground in human, bacterial, and plant immunity – now out in Nature Reviews in Immunology

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Was fun to write this piece with Dina Hochhauser!

Here is a thread to explain the premises

1/
Manipulation of the nucleotide pool in human, bacterial and plant immunity - Nature Reviews Immunology
Modification of the nucleotide pool is emerging as key to innate immunity in animals, plants and bacteria. This Review explains how immune pathways conserved from bacteria to humans manipulate the nuc...
www.nature.com
July 30, 2025 at 6:05 AM
Reposted by Amar Deep
🦠🧍‍♀️From bacterial to human immunity.

We report in @science.org the discovery of a human homolog of SIR2 antiphage proteins that participates in the TLR pathway of animal innate immunity.
Co-led wt @enzopoirier.bsky.social by D. Bonhomme and @hugovaysset.bsky.social

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org
July 24, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Reposted by Amar Deep
Preprint: “Structural modeling reveals viral proteins that manipulate host immune signaling”

Using AI-guided structural modeling, we find new families of viral proteins that sequester or cleave host immune signaling molecules

Congrats Nitzan Tal!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
July 14, 2025 at 7:36 AM
Excellent study, led by @hannahledvina.bsky.social from the Whiteley lab @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social
Check out our new study on how bacteria defend themselves against a peculiar clade of organisms – predatory bacteria! This work was a monumental effort led by @hannahledvina.bsky.social (see her excellent summary👇). The bacterial immune system continues to amaze me...
Words cannot describe how excited I am to share the findings from the second half of my postdoc in @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social's lab where we discover that bacteria use functional amyloids to defend themselves from predatory bacteria. rdcu.be/euu5Y. See thread for details on this epic adventure 1/.
July 3, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Reposted by Amar Deep
We are all somatic mutation mosaics.
"There are trillions of cells in a human body and so the total number of somatic mutations acquired in a single individual may well exceed quadrillions, millions of times the size of the human genome."
@nature.com
nature.com/articles/s41...
The Somatic Mosaicism across Human Tissues Network - Nature
The Somatic Mosaicism across Human Tissues Network aims to create a reference catalogue of somatic mosaicism across different tissues and cells within individuals.
nature.com
July 2, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Reposted by Amar Deep
Excited to share that my work in the @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social lab describing chaperone-mediated phage sensing by a bacterial NLR-related protein is out in @plosbiology.org!
June 4, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Reposted by Amar Deep
Exciting news!! Our latest paper is out in Nat. Microbiol. @natmicrobiol.nature.com

We show that a sub-lineage of 7th pandemic V. cholerae has acquired mobile genetic elements packed with phage defense systems—rendering it multi-phage resistant 😳 ..... 1/3

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
West African–South American pandemic Vibrio cholerae encodes multiple distinct phage defence systems - Nature Microbiology
The West African–South American lineage of Vibrio cholerae contains multiple distinct anti-phage defence systems that provide resistance to various phage families, including vibriophage ICP1, a key pr...
www.nature.com
May 22, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Reposted by Amar Deep
I will be recruiting new postdocs with start dates end 2025 - early 2026. If you'd like to work at the Pasteur Institute in the heart of Paris surrounded by amazing scientists, reach out to discuss possible projects on SynBio / Bacterial Immunity!
May 18, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Reposted by Amar Deep
📜 Bacterial community-emitted volatiles regulate Arabidopsis growth and root architecture in a distinct manner from those from individual strains

🧑‍🔬 @gozdemerveturksoy.bsky.social, @tonnigrubeandersen.bsky.social, Stanislav Kopriva, et al.

📔 @mplantpcom.bsky.social

#️⃣ #PlantScience #PlantImmunity
Bacterial community-emitted volatiles regulate Arabidopsis growth and root architecture in a distinct manner from those from individual strains
Short summary: This study reveals that the effects of bacterial community-produced volatiles on Arabidopsis growth and root architecture are an emergent property beyond the sum of effects by individua...
www.cell.com
May 12, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Reposted by Amar Deep
Our paper on how integrons are biobanks of novel minimal defense systems is now out www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Two main conclusions on this excellent work led by @eloilittner.bsky.social @baptistedarracq.bsky.social 1/n
May 9, 2025 at 1:07 PM