Keenan Lab

Convergent MurJ flippase inhibition by phage lysis proteins - Nature A common mechanism of inhibition of the essential lipid II flippase MurJ by three distinct phage-encoded single-gene lysis proteins provides insights into potential new targets for antimicrobial development.

Nature research paper: Convergent MurJ flippase inhibition by phage lysis proteins

go.nature.com/4aAWHKb

🧵Antibiotic resistance is a public health crisis. But viruses called phages have been solving this problem for millennia. New research in @nature.com reveals how 3 different phages attack the same weak spot—a protein called MurJt—potentially leading to a new class of antibiotics.

Happy to finally share the amazing results of our long-term collaboration with Karin Reinisch’s lab on how bridge lipid-transfer proteins (BLTPs) cooperate with partner proteins to orchestrate lipid delivery. A quick thread (1/7)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

BREAKING: Hundreds gathered at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach to form a human banner reading “It Was Murder 🇺🇸 ICE Out,

Uruguay’s Renewable Charge: A Small Nation, A Big Lesson For The World Uruguay built a power grid that runs 99% on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. Here’s how its bold energy overhaul became a global model.

“Uruguay did what most nations still call impossible: it built a power grid that runs almost entirely on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. The physicist who led that transformation says the same playbook could work anywhere—if governments have the courage to change the rules.”

Final version is out! Our large-scale cryo-ET dataset 🔬 of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii 🦠 is now published in @cp-molcell.bsky.social

Huge collaborative effort! So glad to see the community already using it to develop new resources & tools.

Check it out here: shorturl.at/z4i4c
#CryoEM #CryoET

Organelles do NOT have a single uniform pH.
And if you think they must, because “protons diffuse fast,” this paper is for you.
A thread on why that assumption is wrong; and what we found instead. 🧵 1/n

It’s out! Using cryo-ET in Dicty cells, we take a fresh in situ look at vaults. Surprisingly, we uncover vaults associated with ER and NE membranes, and find that many vaults enclose ribosomes in defined orientations, opening new avenues to their cellular function! www.biorxiv.org/lookup/conte...

Translational activators align mRNAs at the small mitoribosomal subunit for translation initiation Nature Structural & Molecular Biology - Mitochondrial translational activators (TAs) facilitate transcript-specific translation. Using selective ribosome profiling and cryo-electron microscopy,...

Our study on the molecular function of translational activators for mitochondrial protein synthesis is published:
rdcu.be/eSWxT
A great collaboration with @stirlingchurchman.bsky.social and @sshaolab.bsky.social with structural work from our @pelleeas.bsky.social
Funded by @kawresearch.bsky.social

Seven-arm octopus • Animals of the Deep • MBARI The seven-arm octopus is a rarely seen deep-sea giant who feeds on gelatinous animals.

Fresh from the deep—a rarely seen giant in Monterey Bay. 🤩

Last month, MBARI Senior Scientist Steven Haddock and the Biodiversity & Biooptics Team spotted a seven-arm octopus (Haliphron atlanticus) holding a crimson helmet jelly (Periphylla periphylla). Learn more: www.mbari.org/animal/seven...

Reranking partisan animosity in algorithmic social media feeds alters affective polarization Today, social media platforms hold the sole power to study the effects of feed-ranking algorithms. We developed a platform-independent method that reranks participants’ feeds in real time and used thi...

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Induced ubiquitination bypasses canonical ERAD to drive ER protein degradation Heterobifunctional proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTACs) have emerged as a powerful strategy to degrade disease-relevant proteins, enabling targeting of previously "undruggable" proteins. Current d...

New preprint out! We show that PROTAC-induced ubiquitination can bypass canonical ERAD to degrade ER membrane proteins. Wonderful collaboration w/ @dannomura.bsky.social and huge credit to grad student superstar Sydney Tomlinson!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🍰Up for reading more about both studies? Here is the News & Views article written by Deborah Fass & Carolyn S. Sevier:
👉https://rdcu.be/eR1Vg
bit.ly/48BWLbv

ZAK activation at the collided ribosome - Nature The kinase ZAK is activated at collided ribosomes to mediate the ribotoxic stress response.

Nature research paper: ZAK activation at the collided ribosome

go.nature.com/4a9cika

Structural basis of regulated N-glycosylation at the secretory translocon Nature - The structural mechanism of a natively isolated GRP94 folding intermediate tethered to a CCDC134-bound translocon is described, revealing how the nascent chain remodels the translocon to...

How is N-glycosylation regulated? Check out our story, part of a terrific collaboration with our colleagues at Stanford and Northwestern. Congratulations to everyone!

rdcu.be/eQNsJ

GroEL/ES chaperonin unfolds then encapsulates a nascent protein on the ribosome - Nature Communications The GroEL/ES chaperonin can act during protein synthesis to promote folding. Here, Roeselová et al. show how GroEL captures, remodels and sequesters nascent proteins in its central chamber, while they...

Our story on GroEL/ES action during cotranslational folding is now published @natcomms.nature.com. Led by former-student Alzbeta Roeselova, and in collaboration with Rado Enchev's lab @crick.ac.uk.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Never seen our campus like this before. Like every single tree decided to turn red at the same moment

Congratulations!

Our first lab paper is out! We identify and solve the first structure of the SND3 translocon involved in fungal membrane protein insertion. Congratulations @tzujingyang.bsky.social, and our colleagues @saumyakm.bsky.social, @hummerlab.bsky.social and Julian Langer. Read more ⬇️ and ➡️ rdcu.be/eNgIO

🎉 Huge congrats to Maya Schuldiner from the Weizmann Institute (Israel) for the 🏅 Otto Warburg Medal 2026!
Her work on how proteins find their way to organelles and how these organelles talk to each other has reshaped how we think about cells 🧬✨
#OWM #WeizmannInstitute @elsevierconnect.bsky.social

In a great collaboration with @hummerlab.bsky.social and the Kräusslich lab: HIV capsid doesn't break at the NPC; instead, it cracks open the NPC itself! Details in Cell: authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S... @mpibp.bsky.social @uniheidelberg.bsky.social A thread below:

Proud to share our first lab pre-print: “SND3 is the membrane insertase within a fungal multipass translocon” where @tzujingyang.bsky.social solved the structure of a ribosome-associated SND3-translocon complex involved in ER membrane protein insertion ➡️ doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Global analysis of translocon remodeling during protein synthesis at the ER - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology The authors use selective ribosome profiling to define how and when factors for N-glycosylation and membrane insertion engage and disengage from the core Sec61 translocation channel during biogenesis ...

This was a fun new collaboration using selective ribosome profiling to understand how the subunit composition of the ER translocon is tailored by the nascent chain. Congratulations to everyone involved!

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

Global analysis of translocon remodeling during protein synthesis at the ER Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Published online: 20 October 2025; doi:10.1038/s41594-025-01691-6The authors use selective ribosome profiling to define how and when factors for N-glycosylation and membrane insertion engage and disengage from the core Sec61 translocation channel during biogenesis of secretory and membrane proteins at the endoplasmic reticulum.

New online: Global analysis of translocon remodeling during protein synthesis at the ER

A university that signs the “compact” is one that acknowledges its own inability to compete and succeed based talent and merit. It would signal insecurity and mediocrity to current and future students and faculty. Say no. Recruit the best people, protect their freedom and support their hard work.

Proximity-specific ribosome profiling reveals the logic of localized mitochondrial translation Development of LOV-domain-controlled ligase for translation localization (LOCL-TL), an optogenetic approach for monitoring translation with codon resolution at any defined subcellular location under p...

Proximity-specific ribosome profiling reveals the logic of localized mitochondrial translation: Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Principles of cotranslational mitochondrial protein import Selective ribosome profiling reveals that nearly 20% of mitochondrial proteins in human cells are imported during translation on cytosolic ribosomes. Cotranslational import requires an N-terminal pres...

Principles of cotranslational mitochondrial protein import: Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

GCN1 couples GCN2 to ribosomal state to initiate amino acid response pathway signaling | Science www-science-org.proxy.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1126/...

“Revolutionary Science Comes from Unexpected Angles”

Thoughts from our own Tom Rapoport on the role of basic science in curing disease. magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/rev...