Aakash Natarajan
@aakashn.bsky.social
Graduate Student in the Maxwell Lab (Biochemistry, University of Toronto). Studying bacteria-phage interactions in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Reposted by Aakash Natarajan
Excited to share: DNA glycosylases are diverse antiviral effectors. They recognize phage base modifications and initiate genome destruction. A structure‑guided approach made the scope of this discovery possible! 🧪 #phagesky doi.org/10.1101/2025... #phage #microbiology
Antiviral Defence is a Conserved Function of Diverse DNA Glycosylases
Bacteria are frequently attacked by viruses, known as phages, and rely on diverse defence systems like restriction endonucleases and CRISPR-Cas to survive. While phages can evade these defences by cov...
doi.org
October 30, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Excited to share: DNA glycosylases are diverse antiviral effectors. They recognize phage base modifications and initiate genome destruction. A structure‑guided approach made the scope of this discovery possible! 🧪 #phagesky doi.org/10.1101/2025... #phage #microbiology
Reposted by Aakash Natarajan
1/16 New pre-print from the Sternberg Lab!
We uncover how temperate phages can use RNA-guided transcription factors to remodel the flagellar composition of their bacterial host and enhance their fitness.
Find the preprint and full story here: tinyurl.com/mshwjd77
We uncover how temperate phages can use RNA-guided transcription factors to remodel the flagellar composition of their bacterial host and enhance their fitness.
Find the preprint and full story here: tinyurl.com/mshwjd77
July 24, 2025 at 7:58 PM
1/16 New pre-print from the Sternberg Lab!
We uncover how temperate phages can use RNA-guided transcription factors to remodel the flagellar composition of their bacterial host and enhance their fitness.
Find the preprint and full story here: tinyurl.com/mshwjd77
We uncover how temperate phages can use RNA-guided transcription factors to remodel the flagellar composition of their bacterial host and enhance their fitness.
Find the preprint and full story here: tinyurl.com/mshwjd77
Reposted by Aakash Natarajan
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 Aakash Natarajan
Check out our new story led by @aesully98.bsky.social describing how bacteria turn immune evasion against phage! In collaboration with @benmorehouse.bsky.social lab, we discover that bacteria guard their nucleotide second messenger pool using a nucleotidyltransferase related to Cas10/CRISPR enzymes
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
April 8, 2025 at 2:52 AM
Check out our new story led by @aesully98.bsky.social describing how bacteria turn immune evasion against phage! In collaboration with @benmorehouse.bsky.social lab, we discover that bacteria guard their nucleotide second messenger pool using a nucleotidyltransferase related to Cas10/CRISPR enzymes
Reposted by Aakash Natarajan
Hello BlueSky! Inaugural post here from the Sternberg Lab. We're excited to share our latest work, in which we teamed up with the @WiedenheftLab to study how DRT9 reverse transcriptases provide antiviral immunity. Here’s what we found: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Protein-primed DNA homopolymer synthesis by an antiviral reverse transcriptase
Bacteria defend themselves from viral predation using diverse immune systems, many of which sense and target foreign DNA for degradation. Defense-associated reverse transcriptase (DRT) systems provide...
www.biorxiv.org
March 26, 2025 at 10:13 PM
Hello BlueSky! Inaugural post here from the Sternberg Lab. We're excited to share our latest work, in which we teamed up with the @WiedenheftLab to study how DRT9 reverse transcriptases provide antiviral immunity. Here’s what we found: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Aakash Natarajan
It’s out! Brand new work from my PostDoc in @themaxwelllab.bsky.social exploring anti-phage defence in V. parahaemolyticus: Integrons are anti-phage defence libraries in Vibrio parahaemolyticus
rdcu.be/d7EsN
rdcu.be/d7EsN
Integrons are anti-phage defence libraries in Vibrio parahaemolyticus
Nature Microbiology - Integrons are genetic elements that capture and store gene cassettes in Vibrio species. Bioinformatic and molecular techniques show that these regions can be hotspots of phage...
rdcu.be
January 27, 2025 at 3:48 PM
It’s out! Brand new work from my PostDoc in @themaxwelllab.bsky.social exploring anti-phage defence in V. parahaemolyticus: Integrons are anti-phage defence libraries in Vibrio parahaemolyticus
rdcu.be/d7EsN
rdcu.be/d7EsN
Reposted by Aakash Natarajan
What is the diversity of antiphage systems out there ?
We used protein and genomic language models (and defense score!) to start bringing some answers: >45 000 protein families.
Leb by E. Mordret.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Interactive UMAP to have fun
mdmparis.github.io/antiphage-la...
We used protein and genomic language models (and defense score!) to start bringing some answers: >45 000 protein families.
Leb by E. Mordret.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Interactive UMAP to have fun
mdmparis.github.io/antiphage-la...
January 9, 2025 at 1:18 PM
What is the diversity of antiphage systems out there ?
We used protein and genomic language models (and defense score!) to start bringing some answers: >45 000 protein families.
Leb by E. Mordret.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Interactive UMAP to have fun
mdmparis.github.io/antiphage-la...
We used protein and genomic language models (and defense score!) to start bringing some answers: >45 000 protein families.
Leb by E. Mordret.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Interactive UMAP to have fun
mdmparis.github.io/antiphage-la...
Reposted by Aakash Natarajan
What a great way to end the year! ✨
Today in @cellpress.bsky.social we report the structure and function of the Shedu anti-phage defense system.
tinyurl.com/4crj6dnx
A long 🧵...
Today in @cellpress.bsky.social we report the structure and function of the Shedu anti-phage defense system.
tinyurl.com/4crj6dnx
A long 🧵...
December 31, 2024 at 3:38 PM
What a great way to end the year! ✨
Today in @cellpress.bsky.social we report the structure and function of the Shedu anti-phage defense system.
tinyurl.com/4crj6dnx
A long 🧵...
Today in @cellpress.bsky.social we report the structure and function of the Shedu anti-phage defense system.
tinyurl.com/4crj6dnx
A long 🧵...
Reposted by Aakash Natarajan
Excited to share our preprint with @savitski_lab led by @tarabartolec.bsky.social, @KMitosch & Clément Potel! We uncovered a mechanism by which the T7 phage broadly counteracts DNA-targeting bacterial defenses by deploying a loose cannon kinase in its genome @embl.org www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Pervasive phosphorylation by phage T7 kinase disarms bacterial defenses
Bacteria and bacteriophages are in a constant arms race to develop bacterial defense and phage counter-defense systems. Currently known phage counter-defense systems are specific to (the activity of) ...
www.biorxiv.org
December 23, 2024 at 7:29 AM
Excited to share our preprint with @savitski_lab led by @tarabartolec.bsky.social, @KMitosch & Clément Potel! We uncovered a mechanism by which the T7 phage broadly counteracts DNA-targeting bacterial defenses by deploying a loose cannon kinase in its genome @embl.org www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Aakash Natarajan
Out in NAR, AntiDefenseFinder & our "systematic" analysis of inhibitors of antiphage systems wt Bondy-Denomy lab led by @ftesson.bsky.social and E. Huiting.
Not so "systematic" as very few known, fun stuff on MGE, antidefense islands and cool phages exaptations!
academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...
Not so "systematic" as very few known, fun stuff on MGE, antidefense islands and cool phages exaptations!
academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...
Exploring the diversity of anti-defense systems across prokaryotes, phages and mobile genetic elements
Abstract. The co-evolution of prokaryotes, phages and mobile genetic elements (MGEs) has driven the diversification of defense and anti-defense systems ali
academic.oup.com
December 16, 2024 at 8:53 AM
Out in NAR, AntiDefenseFinder & our "systematic" analysis of inhibitors of antiphage systems wt Bondy-Denomy lab led by @ftesson.bsky.social and E. Huiting.
Not so "systematic" as very few known, fun stuff on MGE, antidefense islands and cool phages exaptations!
academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...
Not so "systematic" as very few known, fun stuff on MGE, antidefense islands and cool phages exaptations!
academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...