Eduardo Rocha
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epcrocha.bsky.social
Eduardo Rocha
@epcrocha.bsky.social
2.8K followers 520 following 93 posts
Scientist, genomics, evolution, microbiology, computational biology, Pasteur Institute, Paris
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epcrocha.bsky.social
Eduardo Rocha @epcrocha.bsky.social · Oct 14
Two intensive sampling periods of oyster-associated vibrio and their phage, 4 years apart, and many surprises. Despite being washed by the Atlantic, wide tides, and vibrio (almost?) disappearing most of the year, we can find the exact same virulent phages 4 years later (down to 0 SNP)! preprint👇
Lytic phages form modular isolation networks and exhibit long-term genetic stability
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
camilleberthelot.bsky.social
Still looking for our perfect doctoral candidate as part of @evomg-dn.bsky.social - come and join us to work on the evolutionary pressures that shape gene expression and disease in the uterus!

Please RT (or is it RB? not sure how our lingo has changed!)
November 14, 2025 at 10:22 AM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
benjaminhgood.bsky.social
Excited to share some new work led by grad student Sophie Walton (w/ @petrovadmitri.bsky.social). We used in vitro gut communities to study how natural selection acts on strains of the same species as they compete within larger communities. Check out Sophie's thread below for details!
sophiejwalton.bsky.social Sophie Jean Walton @sophiejwalton.bsky.social · 3d
Super excited that the bulk of my PhD work is now preprinted! Here we used whole-community competition, or coalescence, experiments to quantify selection acting on genetically diverged strains within larger communities. (1/n)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org
November 12, 2025 at 3:43 AM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
ggspasteur.bsky.social
We are happy to share a new paper from our lab:
The influence of environment on bacterial co-abundance in the gut microbiomes of healthy human individuals www.nature.com/articles/s42...
which investigates environmental effects on microbiome interactions, using our previously published tool MANOCCA.
The influence of environment on bacterial co-abundance in the gut microbiomes of healthy human individuals - Communications Biology
Co-abundance analysis of 938 healthy individuals uncovers how host factors shape gut microbiome interactions, highlighting a core set of 200 impacted genera and additional factor-specific interactions...
www.nature.com
November 10, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social
The hitchhiker’s guide to cross-species DNA delivery

@cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social Spotlight by Kotaro Kiga and Rodrigo Ibarra-Chávez

www.cell.com/trends/micro...
The hitchhiker’s guide to cross-species DNA delivery
Microbial hitchhikers are rewriting the rules of horizontal gene transfer. He, Patkowski, et al. reveal how phage satellites assemble chimeric infective particles that deliver DNA across species bound...
www.cell.com
November 9, 2025 at 9:39 AM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
sullivan-lab.bsky.social
🚨vConTACT3 preprint live!🚨(Peer Review soon...!)

vConTACT3 delivers a unified, scalable, and transparent framework for genome-based virus taxonomy — helping translate big viral data into systematic classification.

🔗 Read the preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Improvements details below 👇
Scalable and systematic hierarchical virus taxonomy with vConTACT3
Viruses are key players in diverse ecosystems, but studying their impacts is technically and taxonomically challenging. Taxonomic complexities derive from undersampling, diverse DNA and RNA genomes wi...
doi.org
November 7, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
apcamargo.bsky.social
🚨New preprint out!
We present a foundational genomic resource of human gut microbiome viruses. It delivers high-quality, deeply curated data spanning taxonomy, predicted hosts, structures, and functions, providing a reference for gut virome research. (1/8)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
November 6, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
ostermanilya.bsky.social
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 Eduardo Rocha
zeynepbaharoglu.bsky.social
Our new paper maps the tRNA modification landscape in Vibrio cholerae! 💫
We describe differences from E. coli and discuss links to decoding of stress-related codons 🦠
Huge thanks to amazing co-authors and collaborators!
@plos.org #rnasky #microsky #tRNAmodifications
The tRNA epitranscriptomic landscape and RNA modification enzymes in Vibrio cholerae
Author summary This study charts the first genome-wide map of transfer RNA (tRNA) modifications in the cholera pathogen, Vibrio cholerae, revealing how chemical marks on tRNAs shape translation and st...
journals.plos.org
November 3, 2025 at 11:58 PM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
tomerullman.bsky.social
Nature suggests you use their "Manuscript Adviser" bot to get advice before submitting

I uploaded the classic Watson & Crick paper about DNA structure, and the Adviser had this to say about one of the greatest paper endings of the century:
November 3, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
gerovac.bsky.social
Use antisense oligomers to silence phage genes and discover new biology.
@jorg-vogel-lab.bsky.social @helmholtz-hiri.bsky.social @helmholtzhzi.bsky.social @uni-wuerzburg.de
print: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
highlight: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
briefing: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
October 31, 2025 at 8:08 AM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
monicabettencourt.bsky.social
📣 We are moving to Barcelona to join the amazing @crg.eu and explore how centrosomes & cilia work, evolve & respond to the environment. We are looking for
PhD students www.crg.eu/en/content/t...
Postdocs gimm.pt/jobs/postdoc...
Other calls to open, also for an experienced lab manager.
Get in touch!
October 30, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
jomcinerney.bsky.social
I've often wondered about what we should call organisms whose similarity might be due to acquired genetic material. It got a little complicated, but I made a stab at it here

Classifying Convergences in the Light of Horizontal Gene Transfer: Epaktovars and Xenotypes academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...
Classifying Convergences in the Light of Horizontal Gene Transfer: Epaktovars and Xenotypes
Abstract. The classification of living systems presents significant challenges due to the prevalence of gene transfer between genomes. Traditional taxonomi
academic.oup.com
October 30, 2025 at 11:33 AM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
paulbrainey.bsky.social
@prczhaoyansong.bsky.social’s deep dive into the dark matter of compost communities is now out 🎉 Genomic islands hijack jumbo phages—whose capsids enable transfer of large tracts of DNA—shedding new light on the scale & scope of phage-mediated gene flow 😎

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Jumbo phage–mediated transduction of genomic islands | PNAS
Bacteria acquire new genes by horizontal gene transfer, typically mediated by mobile genetic elements (MGEs). While plasmids, bacteriophages, and c...
www.pnas.org
October 28, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
richardsever.bsky.social
That merely being “under review” by a Nature family journal is offered as a quality proxy for a paper is a tragic illustration of the extent to which academia is addicted to brands and outsources evaluation
October 25, 2025 at 6:37 PM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
sylvainbrisse.bsky.social
Almost there! Starting tomorrow morning (Paris time), the webinar on Bacterial strain Taxonomy for Genomic Surveillance organized within the ECDC sponsored GenEpi-BioTrain programme; registration is free; see more here: research.pasteur.fr/en/event/bac...
Bacterial strain Taxonomy for Genomic Surveillance - GenEpi-BioTrain Webinar - Research
This workshop aims to provide participants with a comprehensive understanding of bacterial classification and nomenclature approaches used in genomic surveillance. Participants will gain insight into ...
research.pasteur.fr
October 21, 2025 at 1:47 PM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
evolletters.bsky.social
Horizontal gene transfer, segregation loss, and the speed of microbial adaptation
doi.org/10.1093/evle...

Now in @evolletters.bsky.social by David V McLeod and Sylvain Gandon
Horizontal gene transfer, segregation loss, and the speed of microbial adaptation
Abstract. Microbial adaptation is driven by the circulation of mobile genetic elements (MGEs) among bacteria. On the one hand, MGEs can be viewed as selfis
doi.org
October 20, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
bioinfoadv.bsky.social
🧬 Now published in Bioinformatics Advances: “Advances and challenges in understanding evolution through genome comparison.”

Read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1093/bioadv/vbaf223
October 20, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
stephentang23.bsky.social
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 12:47 PM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
audeber.bsky.social
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
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
mkrupovic.bsky.social
Check out our paper on intricate nested interactions between viruses and virus satellites of haloarchaea and their nanosized DPANN symbionts. Excellent collaboration with @deemteam.bsky.social, @anagtz.bsky.social and Michail Yakimov
Free access link: rdcu.be/eLtCH
🧵 by @yifanzhou.bsky.social 👇
October 17, 2025 at 10:28 AM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
jrpenades.bsky.social
Our latest work reveals that arbitrium phages cross-communicate across species! These tiny viruses “listen” to signals from others, coordinating lysis-lysogeny decisions across species.
Original idea from @albertomarina.bsky.social and, as usual, he was right.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Phages communicate across species to shape microbial ecosystems
Arbitrium is a communication system that helps bacteriophages decide between lysis and lysogeny via secreted peptides. In arbitrium, the AimP peptide binds its cognate AimR receptor to repress aimX ex...
www.biorxiv.org
October 14, 2025 at 1:36 PM
epcrocha.bsky.social
Well, I guess I just learned that svg don't work great here. Check the figures in the preprint!
epcrocha.bsky.social Eduardo Rocha @epcrocha.bsky.social · Oct 14
Two intensive sampling periods of oyster-associated vibrio and their phage, 4 years apart, and many surprises. Despite being washed by the Atlantic, wide tides, and vibrio (almost?) disappearing most of the year, we can find the exact same virulent phages 4 years later (down to 0 SNP)! preprint👇
October 14, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
epcrocha.bsky.social
Two intensive sampling periods of oyster-associated vibrio and their phage, 4 years apart, and many surprises. Despite being washed by the Atlantic, wide tides, and vibrio (almost?) disappearing most of the year, we can find the exact same virulent phages 4 years later (down to 0 SNP)! preprint👇
Lytic phages form modular isolation networks and exhibit long-term genetic stability
October 14, 2025 at 4:08 PM
epcrocha.bsky.social
Two intensive sampling periods of oyster-associated vibrio and their phage, 4 years apart, and many surprises. Despite being washed by the Atlantic, wide tides, and vibrio (almost?) disappearing most of the year, we can find the exact same virulent phages 4 years later (down to 0 SNP)! preprint👇
Lytic phages form modular isolation networks and exhibit long-term genetic stability
October 14, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Reposted by Eduardo Rocha
beatrizbeamud.bsky.social
Thank you so much, Michael! Prophages are a treasure trove! We were excited to see the recent preprint from @rafalmostowy.bsky.social lab using GWAS, such a great complementary approach!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Capsular specificity in temperate phages of Klebsiella pneumoniae is driven by diverse receptor-binding enzymes
Understanding host-range determinants in temperate bacteriophages is critical for elucidating phage-host co-evolution and advancing phage therapies.We analysed 3,900 Klebsiella genomes from diverse ec...
www.biorxiv.org
October 13, 2025 at 8:43 AM