Amy Conte
@amyconte.bsky.social
PhD student - Aaron Whiteley Lab
CU Boulder
She/her
Interested in phage-bacteria conflict ⚔️🦠
CU Boulder
She/her
Interested in phage-bacteria conflict ⚔️🦠
Reposted by Amy Conte
A little late to the Panoptes party, but I’m delighted to share that our paper is published! 👁️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The Panoptes system uses decoy cyclic nucleotides to defend against phage - Nature
The Panoptes antiphage system defends bacteria by detecting phage-encoded counter-defences that sequester cyclic nucleotide signals, triggering membrane disruption and highlighting a broader strategy of sensing immune evasion through second-messenger surveillance.
www.nature.com
October 3, 2025 at 4:11 PM
A little late to the Panoptes party, but I’m delighted to share that our paper is published! 👁️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Amy Conte
I am delighted to share that my work in the @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social lab is now on bioRxiv! We used a large-scale genetic screen to begin defining the vast landscape of phage proteins that trigger immune signaling in bacteria.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Identifying phage proteins that activate the bacterial innate immune system
Bacteria have evolved sophisticated antiphage systems that halt phage replication upon detecting specific phage triggers. Identifying phage triggers is crucial to our understanding of immune signaling...
www.biorxiv.org
July 11, 2025 at 4:15 PM
I am delighted to share that my work in the @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social lab is now on bioRxiv! We used a large-scale genetic screen to begin defining the vast landscape of phage proteins that trigger immune signaling in bacteria.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Amy Conte
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/.
Functional amyloid proteins confer defence against predatory bacteria
Nature - Escherichia coli uses curli fibres, oligomers of the functional amyloid CsgA, as a barrier to protect against the predatory bacteria Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus and Myxococcus xanthus in a...
rdcu.be
July 2, 2025 at 8:10 PM
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/.
Reposted by Amy Conte
Extremely excited to share I have accepted an offer to be an Assistant Professor in the MCDB department at the University of Michigan! Go Blue! The Ledvina lab will investigate the molecular interworking of the bacterial immune systems including defense against both viral and bacterial pathogens.
June 25, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Extremely excited to share I have accepted an offer to be an Assistant Professor in the MCDB department at the University of Michigan! Go Blue! The Ledvina lab will investigate the molecular interworking of the bacterial immune systems including defense against both viral and bacterial pathogens.
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!
Bacteria encode homologs of the human NACHT proteins that form inflammasomes and use them to defend against phage #infection. @amyconte.bsky.social @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social &co show that bNACHT25 detects diverse phages indirectly through interaction with the host chaperone DnaJ. 🧪
plos.io/4koXP60
plos.io/4koXP60
DnaJ mediates phage sensing by the bacterial NLR-related protein bNACHT25
Bacteria encode homologs of the human NACHT proteins that form inflammasomes, and use them to defend against phage infection. This study shows that the NLR-related protein bNACHT25 detects diverse pha...
plos.io
June 4, 2025 at 1:45 PM
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!
Reposted by Amy Conte
Excited to share that my work from the @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social lab is now on bioRxiv! With @benmorehouse.bsky.social, we discovered that the Panoptes defense system—named after the all-seeing watchman of Hera—uses decoy nucleotides to detect phage anti-defense proteins.
A minimal CRISPR polymerase produces decoy cyclic nucleotides to detect phage anti-defense proteins
Bacteria use antiphage systems to combat phages, their ubiquitous competitors, and evolve new defenses through repeated reshuffling of basic functional units into novel reformulations. A common theme ...
www.biorxiv.org
March 31, 2025 at 10:00 PM
Excited to share that my work from the @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social lab is now on bioRxiv! With @benmorehouse.bsky.social, we discovered that the Panoptes defense system—named after the all-seeing watchman of Hera—uses decoy nucleotides to detect phage anti-defense proteins.
Reposted by Amy Conte
I’m so excited to share that some of my grad work in the @aaronwhiteley lab is now available on bioRxiv! We used an AlphaFold-multimer screen to uncover how a bacterial NLR-related proteins senses multiple phage-encoded proteins to confer phage protection. Link: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A bacterial NLR-related protein recognizes multiple unrelated phage triggers to sense infection
Immune systems must rapidly sense viral infections to initiate antiviral signaling and protect the host. Bacteria encode >100 distinct viral (phage) defense systems and each has evolved to sense cruci...
www.biorxiv.org
December 18, 2024 at 8:08 PM
I’m so excited to share that some of my grad work in the @aaronwhiteley lab is now available on bioRxiv! We used an AlphaFold-multimer screen to uncover how a bacterial NLR-related proteins senses multiple phage-encoded proteins to confer phage protection. Link: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...