Tinashe Prince Maviza

Ribosomal expansion segment contributes to translation fidelity via N-terminal processing of ribosomal proteins Abstract. Eukaryotic ribosomes exhibit higher mRNA translation fidelity than prokaryotic ribosomes, partly due to eukaryote-specific ribosomal RNA (rRNA) i

academic.oup.com/nar/article/...?

Structurally heterogeneous ribosomes cooperate in protein synthesis in bacterial cells - Nature Communications Cells can simultaneously produce structurally dissimilar ribosomes, suggesting functional specialization of distinct ribosome populations. Here, the authors show that distinct ribosomes cooperate rath...

Here we unexpectedly find that the ribosomal protein S20/L26—identified at the dawn of ribosome research but later deemed a biochemical artifact—is indeed a genuine component of the large ribosomal subunit. More on this ribosome content variation is here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

YebC2 resolves ribosome stalling and increases fitness of cells lacking EF-P and the ABCF ATPase YfmR Author summary Polyproline motifs are essential structural features of many proteins but are difficult for the ribosome to synthesize. EF-P reduces ribosome pausing at polyproline motifs. Here, we sho...

Latest work from the lab - we identify a translation factor, YebC2, that reduces ribosome stalling in B. subtilis!

Congrats to co-first authors: grad students Hye-Rim Hong & Cassidy Prince & undergrad Dennis Wu @denniswu02.bsky.social

journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

A broad-spectrum lasso peptide antibiotic targeting the bacterial ribosome - Nature A new lasso peptide antibiotic exhibits broad-spectrum activity against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria by interfering with bacterial protein synthesis, is unaffected by common resistanc...

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

🚨New paper!🚨

A comprehensive take on the origins and evolution of translation factors & how these essential players evolved across the tree of life. 🌍🧬

Led by Evrim Fer @uwmadisonmdtp.bsky.social grad student! 👏

Free access: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @cp-trendsgenetics.bsky.social

Structurally heterogeneous ribosomes cooperate in protein synthesis in bacterial cells - Nature Communications Cells can simultaneously produce structurally dissimilar ribosomes, suggesting functional specialization of distinct ribosome populations. Here, the authors show that distinct ribosomes cooperate rath...

New cryo-EM/ET story - a brilliant collaboration with Sergey Melnikov's lab in Newcastle @sergeymelnikov.bsky.social and Stefan Pfeffer's lab in Heidelberg @pfeffercryolab.bsky.social. Great work in particular by Karla Helena-Bueno and @sophiekopetschke.bsky.social

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

Congratulations Ilya, this is awesome & very humbling. More discoveries await! :)

This is the third paper from the lab published in the past week. Each of these studies took years to accomplish, and in a nice coincidence all three were published together

The complexity of the bacterial immune system still surprises us, many more discoveries to come

Our paper is finally published in Science! 🎉The HPLC, NMR, MS, purification, and characterization of the new molecule felt like a real detective story. I was especially thrilled to use and reference my grandfather, Lev Osterman's, 1966 paper—he was the main reason I became a scientist.

Exciting to see our paper now published 🙌
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

In this project co-led with @ostermanilya.bsky.social at @soreklab.bsky.social , we show that a bacterial immune system employs a TIR protein and a caspase-like protease, two typical immune components seen in eukaryotes. 🧵👇

Our paper out @Nature: CARD domains mediate anti-phage defense in bacterial gasdermin systems

CARDs are essential for caspase recruitment during human inflammasome activation. We now find them in bacterial immune systems

Congrats Tana Wein! Thank you Kranzusch lab!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Recognition and cleavage of human tRNA methyltransferase TRMT1 by the SARS-CoV-2 main protease The SARS-CoV-2 main protease specifically cleaves a conserved sequence in the human tRNA modifying enzyme TRMT1, resulting in reduced tRNA binding and the complete loss of TRMT1-mediated tRNA methyltr...

📣 Final version of our @elife.bsky.social article is now online! We show how the human tRNA methyltransferase TRMT1 is recognized, cleaved, and inactivated by the SARS-CoV-2 main protease to disrupt host tRNA modification!

elifesciences.org/articles/91168

A short bluetorial... 🧵 1/9

Molecular and structural basis of a subfamily of PrfH rescuing both the damaged and intact ribosomes stalled in translation In bacteria, spontaneous mRNAs degradation and ribotoxin-induced RNA damage are two main biological events that lead to the stall of protein translation. The ubiquitous trans-translation system as wel...

Rescue of stalled (damaged/intact) ribosomes by the peptide release factor PrfH (part of the PrfH-RtcB rescue-repair system). 🧪 #Ribosome doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Structure-guided discovery of viral proteins that inhibit host immunity Large-scale, structure-guided computational pipeline sifts through millions of phage proteins to identify those that bind and antagonize host immune proteins. Detected proteins are shown to inhibit no...

Our paper out @CellCellPress: Structure guided discovery of viral proteins that inhibit host immunity

Congrats Erez Yirmiya, Azita Leavitt, Gil Amitai, our collaborators at the Kranzusch lab, and coauthors

A 🧵 1/10

www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

DNA end sensing and cleavage by the Shedu anti-phage defense system The detection of molecular patterns associated with invading pathogens is a hallmark of innate immune systems. Prokaryotes deploy sophisticated host d…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Yet another phage defense system that detects free DNA ends and provides immunity without causing 'programmed cell death'.

Do you know where transcription of a gene actually stops? Hint: it is not the annotated gene end.
In our new paper in Nucleic Acids Research we argue that phosphorylation on threonine 4 of RNA Pol II CTD is a marker of transcription termination in animals... 🧵
academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

Doing good science is 90% finding a science buddy to constantly talk to about the project.

The ribotoxic stress response drives acute inflammation, cell death, and epidermal thickening in UV-irradiated skin in vivo Solar UVB light causes damage to the outermost layer of skin. This insult induces rapid local responses, such as dermal inflammation, keratinocyte cel…

sunburn is from ribosomes stalled by UV damage to RNA? super cool www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Natural variation in the drug-binding residues of bacterial ribosomes Drugs that target bacterial ribosomes are widely used in modern medicine and veterinary practice to treat bacterial infections and prevent the spread of antimicrobial resistance. However, most studies...

Natural variation in the drug-binding residues of bacterial ribosomes

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Ribosomes hibernate on mitochondria during cellular stress Nature Communications - Cells adapt to low glucose by halting protein synthesis and altering organelle shape. Here the authors showed that hibernating ribosomes tether to mitochondria and form...

Yeast ribosomes adapt to glucose starvation by tethering to mitochondria in hibernation. Prolonged depletion halts protein synthesis and remodels ribosomes to create protective ribosome arrays. #ribosomes #RNASky #RNABiology #translation rdcu.be/d1xqj

The Ban lab shows us the #cryoEM structure of the mammalian SRP-SR pre-handover complex on the ribosome. Congratulations to Kan Kobayashi and Ahmad @a__jomaa! http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2018/03/21/science.aar7924.full

As a biochemist, I am continually surprised that people keep rediscovering that tags affect protein properties

Wonderful tools for Ribosome profiling (Ribo-seq) within a web browser. Check out riboseq.org and academic.oup.com/nar/advance-... 🧪 #RNASky #ribosome

Faster and more accurate protein modeling with CryFold. By focusing on nearby points (Local Attention) and employing map masking, CryFold excels in generating models from challenging maps regions. It enables a more cost-efficient model building. 🧵
💾 github.com/SBQ-1999/Cry...