Aude Bernheim
audeber.bsky.social
Aude Bernheim
@audeber.bsky.social
PI at Institut Pasteur
Evolution, immunity, genomics, microbiolgy.
Into immunity in bacteria and its conservation in eukaryotes.
Advocate for more inclusive sciences
https://research.pasteur.fr/en/team/molecular-diversity-of-microbes/
Pinned
Hi everyone, a few years ago, we started a list of labs studying bacterial immunty for students, editors, conference organizers... (currently n=79).

Update time ! Send me a message to 1) add your lab or others 2) Correct info
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
#Phagesky #Microsky
Labs in bacterial immunity
docs.google.com
Such an elegant mechanism. Perfect to make November more fun.

Also, we wrote a review about NAD+ and bacterial immunity, that came out last month. Thanks Ilya for making it outdated already :).

Congrats to everyone for a beautiful discovery!
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 8:50 AM
Reposted by Aude Bernheim
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
Hi everyone, a few years ago, we started a list of labs studying bacterial immunty for students, editors, conference organizers... (currently n=79).

Update time ! Send me a message to 1) add your lab or others 2) Correct info
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
#Phagesky #Microsky
Labs in bacterial immunity
docs.google.com
November 4, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Reposted by Aude Bernheim
Exciting day for the lab: our 1rst paper is officially out in @currentbiology.bsky.social 🥳 Wonderful collaboration wt @gautamdey.bsky.social showing how Cryo-ExM achieves consistent immunostaining in diverse diatoms, from the lab and the natural environment 1/n
#ProtistsOnSky
tinyurl.com/2zxaund7
October 31, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by Aude Bernheim
NAD+ is a central molecule in bacterial immunity. An excellent and timely review by Hugo Vausset and Aude Bernheim
October 18, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Reposted by Aude Bernheim
Happy that the final version of our Lamassu work @yli18smc.bsky.social is now out:

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

Thanks again to our awesome collaborators @mblokesch.bsky.social and David and co and Mark Szczelkun and @steven-shaw.bsky.social and the DCI Lausanne @fbm-unil.bsky.social
Glad to share the work of @yli18smc.bsky.social and co on Lamassu, a bacterial defense system related to Rad50/Mre11 (RM). While RM carefully trims DNA ends for repair, Lamassu chops up the host chromosome. Our study reveals how it is regulated to minimize damage, activating only during infection.
October 14, 2025 at 9:28 AM
Many antiphage systems use NAD+, in many ways.
@hugovaysset.bsky.social reviewed them all!

Read to know more about all their molecular mechanisms, how phages counteract them, their distribution in bacteria and their conservation in eukaryotic immunity!
www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
The multifaceted roles of NAD+ in bacterial immunity
In this review, Vaysset and Bernheim examine how nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) is a key player in diverse and widespread bacterial antiphage defense systems and phage counterdefense. The au...
www.cell.com
October 17, 2025 at 5:55 PM
🦠🐘 From bacteria to the elephant ... with a twist. Eukaryotic telomerases originate in antiphage reverse transcriptases 🤯.

Mindblowing discovery from @stephentang23.bsky.social @sternberglab.bsky.social.
Such an incredible exaptation event uncovered through molecular genetics and genomics.
Genome maintenance by telomerase is a fundamental process in nearly all eukaryotes. But where does it come from?

Today, we report the discovery of telomerase homologs in a family of antiviral reverse transcriptases, revealing an unexpected evolutionary origin in bacteria.

doi.org/10.1101/2025...
October 17, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Reposted by Aude Bernheim
Perfect timing in the field for a beautiful review on NAD+ in bacterial immunity by @hugovaysset.bsky.social and @audeber.bsky.social @cp-molcell.bsky.social

#MicroSky

www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
October 16, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Reposted by Aude Bernheim
Six Pasteur scientists win 2025 L’Oréal-UNESCO Young Talents! 🌟 Yolène: Caribbean plants vs dengue mozzies; Leah: gastruloid biophysics; Marion: cancer immunotherapy; Eulalie: menstruation genetics; Sabrina: fixing hearing nerve; Marie: TB & sarcoid immunity. #WomenInScience
October 15, 2025 at 7:41 AM
Reposted by Aude Bernheim
Thank you to the Blavatnik Family Foundation and The New York Academy of Sciences for honoring our research uniting human innate immunity and bacterial anti-phage defense at @danafarber.bsky.social @harvardmicro.bsky.social @harvard.edu

bit.ly/4pZUDkF

blavatnikawards.org/news/items/t...
October 9, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Congratulations @kranzuschlab.bsky.social ! So well deserved. And a great reason to re-read the many many incredible papers that completely changed our perspective on bacterial and eukaryotic immunity.
Congratulations to Philip J. Kranzusch, Ph.D., Professor of Cancer Immunology and Virology, who was one of three scientists awarded top honors at the 2025 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists.

Watch to learn more about his work: bit.ly/4pZUDkF
October 9, 2025 at 6:28 AM
Reposted by Aude Bernheim
Congratulations to Philip J. Kranzusch, Ph.D., Professor of Cancer Immunology and Virology, who was one of three scientists awarded top honors at the 2025 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists.

Watch to learn more about his work: bit.ly/4pZUDkF
October 8, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Reposted by Aude Bernheim
Today in @nature.com , we highlight how a cousin of CRISPR-Cas10, mCpol, establishes an evolutionary trap in anti-phage immune systems.

Check out @erinedoherty.bsky.social and my work from @doudna-lab.bsky.social lab here:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A miniature CRISPR–Cas10 enzyme confers immunity by inhibitory signalling - Nature
Panoptes, an anti-phage defence system against virus-mediated immune suppression, is revealed.
www.nature.com
October 1, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Reposted by Aude Bernheim
Our story describing the Panoptes bacterial immune defense system is now finally peer-reviewed and published today! 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 1, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Reposted by Aude Bernheim
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
Reposted by Aude Bernheim
The mechanism of STING NF-κB signaling has remained a mystery. An exciting new study from the Paludan lab now uses data throughout animal STING evolution to provide new answers – including isolating white blood cells from turtles and carp!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
STING signals to NF-κB from late endolysosomal compartments using IRF3 as an adaptor - Nature Immunology
Here the authors show how the DNA-sensing cGAS–STING pathway activates NF-κB and inflammatory gene expression with delayed kinetics via post-Golgi endolysosomal signaling.
www.nature.com
September 22, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by Aude Bernheim
Looking for a new approach to studying or eliminating phages? Check out our study introducing anti-phage ASOs (antisense oligos) out in @Nature today. nature.com/articles/s4158…
September 10, 2025 at 3:40 PM
Reposted by Aude Bernheim
New short paper from our lab @currentbiology.bsky.social, in which we discover of a new mode of cell motility for choanoflagellates: flagellar gliding. www.cell.com/current-biol... - A 🧵
Flagellar gliding in choanoflagellates
Freire-Delgado and Brunet discover a new mode of cell motility in choanoflagellates, the closest relatives of animals. Under mild confinement, choanoflagellate move over surfaces without cell deformat...
www.cell.com
September 9, 2025 at 6:12 PM
Reposted by Aude Bernheim
Come join the Nomburg Lab in lovely Vienna! As our first listing, we have a research technician position available to help support the research and operations of the lab. If you're passionate about virology and innate immunity, apply here!

aithyra.onlyfy.jobs/job/3njyn4ey
September 4, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Reposted by Aude Bernheim
📣 We are excited to share our latest paper, led by @taliashaler.bsky.social! We explore the transcriptional basis of #microalgae resistance to #viral_infection and identified a core group of resistance-related genes. >>
(1/3)
#New_Phytologist #Marine_Biology #Viruses
Mapping the transcriptional landscape of algal resistance to viral infection reveals a core expression program
Algal blooms and their demise by viruses drive global-scale ecological processes in the ocean. These blooms form the foundation of marine food webs, regulate microbial communities, and shape biogeoc...
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
September 4, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Reposted by Aude Bernheim
So excited our antibiotic potentiation story is out 🤩 Led by the extraordinary @manonlang.bsky.social with @fox-science.bsky.social & @amazeld.bsky.social +amazing collaborators @immunobladder.bsky.social @imaneelmeouche.bsky.social 🦠 We believe it can make a difference in #AMR infections!
Uridine as a potentiator of aminoglycosides through activation of carbohydrate transporters
Uridine boosts aminoglycoside treatment efficiency against antibiotic-susceptible as well as antibiotic-resistant E. coli strains.
www.science.org
September 6, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Reposted by Aude Bernheim
Effector-triggered immunity (ETI) indirectly detects pathogen effector activity on the host cell.

Kevin Barthes,Tanita Wein and I examine how prokaryotic and eukaryotic viruses deploy similar effectors that activate ETI, underscoring its central role across the tree of life.

tinyurl.com/mr3a3xh2
Viral effectors trigger innate immunity across the tree of life | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Viruses are ubiquitous biological entities that exert immense selective pressures on their hosts, driving the evolution of diverse innate immune mechanisms across all domains of life. While innate imm...
royalsocietypublishing.org
September 5, 2025 at 12:05 PM
YAYYYY, Immune systems of choano !!!!
Beautiful to see how knowledge about bacterial immune systems illuminate immunology in diverse organisms with the always incredible biochemistry and structural approaches of @kranzuschlab.bsky.social.
Wonderful work @yao-li.bsky.social 👏
How can we understand the earliest events in evolution of eukaryotic immunity? @yao-li.bsky.social reports incredible molecular fossils of complete bacterial-like operons in eukaryotes that illuminate how animal immunity was first acquired from anti-phage defense

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
September 5, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Thanks to the authors of this piece. I love reading about the work of inspiring pioneers in bacterial genetics. Crazy amount of discoveries!

Pioneer of bacterial genetics: the legacy of Esther Miriam Lederberg
academic.oup.com/genetics/adv...
Pioneer of bacterial genetics: the legacy of Esther Miriam Lederberg
Abstract. Esther Miriam Lederberg's brilliant scientific lifework, from the discovery of phage lambda, bacterial conjugation, and replica plating, provided
academic.oup.com
September 4, 2025 at 9:25 AM