For those of us living below sea level, it's time to sign up for the Dutch Society for Cell Biology Meeting.

Amazing line of speakers! (see preliminary program)

Sign up here: cell-biology.nl.

PS: highlanders also welcome ;)

Expansion microscopy really looks like a Monet.

"Don't forget to highlight the groundbreaking aspect"

Super excited to be at Pasteur next Friday :)

It turns out that Salmonella replication activates mTOR, which remains active in transformed cells even weeks after the bacteria are gone.
✨Blocking mTOR in these transformed cells for just 4 h was enough to restore a non-transformed phenotype. 💫(8/9)

Via microscopy (👇), we observed that high-transforming strains (in the middle) replicated much faster than other strains in cells.
Blocking their invasion and replication stopped the host transformation process.
How does bacterial replication drive this transformation? (7/9)

Next, we compared the transcriptomes of high- vs. low-transforming strains and found divergences in metabolic gene expression. Metabolic profiling also revealed divergent nutrient utilization. (6/9)

We looked for bacterial genetic markers linked to transformation efficiency. Despite our best efforts, no clear candidates emerged—sometimes the answers aren’t in the genes!
Negative results can be eye-opening… (5/9)

To test each strain's intrinsic ability to transform host cells, we used an anchorage-independent soft-agar assay. Curious about this technique? Check out our STAR Protocols! (3/9)
doi.org/10.1016/j.xp...

We collaborated with the Dutch Health Institutes (RIVM) to analyze 60 non-typhoidal Salmonella strains isolated from patients who later in life developed colon cancer (30 case strains) or not (30 control strains). (2/9)

Idea of the day: When wondering how good your talk title sounds, ask ChatGPT to make an image of it. I got that. I guess I'll keep that title :)

Salmonellae freshly arrived on BlueSky and looking for new friends (based on confocal imaging)