Marcin J. Suskiewicz's Avatar

Marcin J. Suskiewicz

@msuskiewicz

Structural biologist and biochemist. CNRS researcher at CBM Orléans @cbm-upr4301.bsky.social. Interested in protein modifications & interactions. Also husband, dad of 2, friend, ☧. Personal website: msuskiewicz.github.io

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Latest posts by Marcin J. Suskiewicz @msuskiewicz

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Deltaviruses spread through a viral Trojan Horse Hepatitis D-like satellite viruses, known as deltaviruses, have been recently discovered in a wide range of animals. These viruses are thought to expr…

We found a viral Trojan Horse: a virus can hide inside another virus.This one surprised us: deltaviruses don’t just borrow a helper virus. They can travel inside it.
A literal Trojan Horse “virus-in-a-virus” route into cells. 🤯 Kudos to 1st author @viroscope.bsky.social and co-authors !

06.03.2026 18:29 👍 184 🔁 95 💬 8 📌 12
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How does the cell tune p97/Cdc48 activity for different substrates?
Study suggests different adaptor combinations function as molecular accelerators of protein clearance.

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

09.03.2026 00:51 👍 8 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
PhD Defence of Thuy-Duong DO at 2 pm in Orléans. March 20 2026. Genome-wide study of the RNA interactive of the transcription termination factor Rho of Mycobacterium tuberculosis

PhD Defence of Thuy-Duong DO at 2 pm in Orléans. March 20 2026. Genome-wide study of the RNA interactive of the transcription termination factor Rho of Mycobacterium tuberculosis

On March 20, 2026 we'll listen to Thuy-Duong DO PhD Defence @cnrs.fr @univorleans.bsky.social #Rho @agencerecherche.bsky.social

09.03.2026 08:18 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Mapping the yeast atructural interactome with AlphaFold3: an open call for collaboration We are excited to announce the early-stage release of our S. cerevisiae  structural interactome mapping project. Using AlphaFold3 (AF3), w...

We have started a project trying to predic the interactions/structures of all yeast protein pairs using an AlphaFold pooling approach. We are making the current dataset open and we welcome collaborations.
www.evocellnet.com/2026/03/mapp...

04.03.2026 10:36 👍 95 🔁 52 💬 6 📌 0
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Exapted CRISPR–Cas12f homologues drive RNA-guided transcription - Nature Specialized σ factors interact with nuclease-dead, CRISPR–Cas12f proteins to form potent, RNA-guided gene activation systems that function independently of fixed promoter motifs.

Just amazing what evolution can come up with. Naturally occurring nuclease deficient Cas12 family members use gRNAs to bind DNA and recruit sigmaE family members that drive txn initiation proximally. 2 papers! 1- describes 2- structure!
www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

04.03.2026 17:06 👍 38 🔁 21 💬 0 📌 2
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Stunning new structural analysis and mechanism for Tmn anti-phage defense by @fnobrega.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

03.03.2026 21:08 👍 47 🔁 17 💬 2 📌 0
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A pharmacological modality to sequester homomeric proteins - Nature Chemical Biology Polymerization-inducing chimeras are a novel bifunctional modality that uses protein symmetry to sequester targets by forming insoluble supramolecular assemblies. This approach overcomes reliance on a...

Polymerization-inducing chimeras (PINCHs) are a novel bifunctional modality that sequesters target homodimers in a polymeric state, thereby inhibiting their function

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

17.02.2026 19:59 👍 9 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0
Image of FAF2's predicted helical domain interacting with the UFD1 UT3 domain. Next to this are similar images showing the predicted binding of de novo designed protein binders to the same region. Above is a sequence alignment indicating the key residues involved in the interaction.

Image of FAF2's predicted helical domain interacting with the UFD1 UT3 domain. Next to this are similar images showing the predicted binding of de novo designed protein binders to the same region. Above is a sequence alignment indicating the key residues involved in the interaction.

🚨⚠️ New Preprint Alert! ⚠️ 🚨
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Screening p97 cofactors, @prithadg.bsky.social identified FAF2 as the strongest activator of the p97-UFD1-NPL4 complex. Leveraging her mechanistic descoveries, we designed 𝘥𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘰 binders that could also enhance p97 substrate unfolding.

01.03.2026 12:55 👍 27 🔁 13 💬 2 📌 0
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Degrons and degradation signals beyond short linear motifs - Nature Chemical Biology Degrons are degradation signals in target proteins to direct recognition and degradation by the ubiquitin–proteasome system. Wang et al. introduce degrons of different types, with an emphasis on high-...

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

02.03.2026 10:58 👍 16 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0

Papers are like buses... You wait for ages, then two come along at once.

Huge congrats to @bornanovak.bsky.social and @jefflotthammer.bsky.social for pushing and driving every aspect of this work, preprinted ~1 year ago to the day (Friday before BPS), now published!

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

19.02.2026 03:30 👍 86 🔁 35 💬 6 📌 2

A mathematical exploration of some increasingly worrying trends in peer review. Some sensible recommendations, including encouraging AEs to STOP sending out just about everything for re-review after the first round. It's become systematic and annoying. Editors should make decisions.

25.02.2026 17:02 👍 20 🔁 3 💬 2 📌 0

A sequel to 'Groovy science'...

24.02.2026 11:43 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Except literally every data analysis or model I've ever asked AI to build has contained at least one error: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Common response: "But someone just needs to give AI detailed instructions..."

But who is the "someone" in that sentence? And how did they get their expertise?

23.02.2026 11:37 👍 116 🔁 27 💬 5 📌 6

the estimated 1 billion biochemical reactions that occur every second in every cell of our bodies 🤯

23.02.2026 10:31 👍 7 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
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Since last year, I've been making a RELION GUI that supports viewing, navigating and running jobs in a way completely compatible with the original RELION pipeline. Now it's working nicely for both SPA and tomography! Please try it out - github.com/hanjinliu/hi...

22.02.2026 20:10 👍 84 🔁 28 💬 4 📌 0
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Unbalanced chromatin binding of Polycomb complexes drives neurodevelopmental disorders Borges, González-Blanco, Arigela, et al. report new missense mutations in the PRC1 genes RNF2 and RING1 in individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders. Functional dissection of a deleterious variant reveals that balanced co-recruitment of Polycomb complexes to chromatin is essential for proper neurogenesis and for normal brain function and behavior.

Unbalanced chromatin binding of Polycomb complexes drives neurodevelopmental disorders

21.02.2026 16:19 👍 4 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
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Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres - Nature Evolutionarily related ‘proto-point’ centromeres providing resolution to the evolutionary origins of point centromeres are identified in yeast, and comparison shows they evolved in an ancestor with re...

Our paper is now out in Nature:

“Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres”

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

A short thread on how retrotransposons helped give rise to yeast point centromeres.

1/14

18.02.2026 16:03 👍 227 🔁 115 💬 8 📌 10
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Bacteria deliver a microtubule-binding protein into mammalian cells to promote colonization Pathogenic Bordetella bacteria use protein adhesins to infect the ciliated respiratory epithelia of vertebrate hosts. In this work, we show that the filamentous hemagglutinin FhaB adhesin of Bordetell...

Just published in @science.org with related Perspective by Françoise Jacob-Dubuisson.
Bacteria deliver a microtubule-binding protein into mammalian cells to promote colonization | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

20.02.2026 11:04 👍 34 🔁 10 💬 1 📌 0
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Ribosomal RNA expansion segments mediate the oligomerization of inactive animal ribosomes Cells down-regulate protein synthesis when stressed to conserve energy and shift resources toward repair. We found that in some mammalian cells, including neurons, stress also resulted in the formatio...

Out now in @science.org
Ribosomal RNA expansion segments mediate the oligomerization of inactive animal ribosomes | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

20.02.2026 11:06 👍 56 🔁 23 💬 0 📌 0
Two D-loop resolution systems enable natural genetic transformation in bacteria Natural transformation is a widespread mechanism driving genetic exchanges in bacteria. It proceeds by the capture and internalization of exogenous DNA in linear single strands, ultimately integrated in the genome by homologous recombination. It is unknown how the RecA-directed D-loop intermediate of this dedicated recombination pathway is processed. We report that resolution of the transformation D-loop depends on two endonucleases of opposing phylogenetic distribution in bacteria. One is YraN, which has co-evolved and interacts with the ComM helicase, known to extend DNA recombination at the transformation D-loop. The other is CoiA, which is restricted to the Bacillota. CoiA is shown to be a resolvase of the transformation D-loop, extended by the RadA helicase in these species. We demonstrate that both YraN and CoiA act synergistically with their cognate helicases. These findings reveal that bacteria have evolved two helicase/nuclease pairs for the maturation and recombination extension of the transformation D-loop. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Agence Nationale de la Recherche, https://ror.org/00rbzpz17, ANR-20-CE12-0004, ANR-10-BLAN-1331, ANR-17-CE13-0031, ANR-22-CE44-0044, ANR-10-LABX-62-IBEID, PIA/ANR-16-CONV-0005 Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale, https://ror.org/04w6kn183, FDT202001010890 European Union's Horizon research and innovation programme. Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships, 101208987 National Institute of Health, USA, R35GM128674

#microsky
Massive update of preprint with @polardlab.bsky.social!
Bacteria have evolved two systems to recombine extracellular DNA
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Kudos to lead authors Léo Hardy, Violette Morales and Clothilde Rousseau, and to outstanding Dalia's lab and @epcrocha.bsky.social
🧵⬇️

16.01.2026 16:23 👍 18 🔁 8 💬 1 📌 0

... modeling E2 with 2×Ub (one backside, one covalently linked either open or closed) could avoid forcing AF to choose between the two. Just a slight suggestion that came to my mind, @rolanddunbrack.bsky.social . But a very nice and useful work and a nice read!

19.02.2026 15:22 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 2 📌 0
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One comment - it seems to me that the models where the Ub C-terminus is far from the catalytic Cys may represent Ub docked noncovalently on the E2 backside. Since most E2s can bind a second Ub there, compatible with the covalent Ub in a closed/open conformation...

19.02.2026 15:20 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Just finished reading this pre-print. A really nice computational exploration of RING_E3–E2 pairs, and whether AlphaFold might help to predict which RING E3s go with which E2s and model the structures of the resulting complexes.

19.02.2026 14:58 👍 14 🔁 4 💬 1 📌 0

🎉🎉 Our paper on temperature-dependent protein control using AsLOV2 variants is now published at @natchembio.nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41... including some new insights from extend variant characterizations.

12.02.2026 11:46 👍 17 🔁 11 💬 1 📌 0
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AlphaFold Database welcomes community datasets Latest AlphaFold Database update adds high-value datasets for microbial and viral proteins, generated by specialist communities

Delighted to see over 17 million new protein structure predictions from novel proteins in AllTheBacteria are now integrated into the AlphaFold Database at @ebi.embl.org !
Huge work from @gbouras13.bsky.social @oschwengers.bsky.social and friends to generate these.

www.ebi.ac.uk/about/news/u...

17.02.2026 13:52 👍 97 🔁 26 💬 1 📌 2

A very interesting thread!

17.02.2026 10:34 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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Engineering intrinsically disordered regions for guiding genome navigation Liu et al. design and test synthetic IDRs based on simple design rules derived from mutation-based analysis of 25 native TF IDRs. They show that hydrophobic amino acids endow activity, acidic ones pre...

Engineering intrinsically disordered regions for guiding genome navigation: Molecular Cell www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

17.02.2026 09:58 👍 14 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
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We posted a biorxiv preprint on structural bioinformatics, AlphaFold modeling & machine learning on predicting specificity of E3 ligase ring domains for different E2 enzymes. 1/4

Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Models/data (UbiqCore website): dunbrack.fccc.edu/ubiqcore

17.02.2026 05:02 👍 52 🔁 27 💬 1 📌 3
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Engineering a human-based translational activator for targeted protein expression restoration Abstract. Therapeutic modalities to programmably increase protein production are in critical need to address diseases caused by deficient gene expression v

Excited to share our new work in @narjournal.bsky.social ! We engineered a human-based translational activator that rescued phenotypes in a Dravet syndrome mouse model by boosting protein expression from haploinsufficient genes. A thread on targeting translation 🧵
academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

16.02.2026 17:54 👍 19 🔁 7 💬 1 📌 0
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Join us in Palermo!
FEBS Workshop Protein Termini 2026: the power of protein termini across bacteria, plants, and animals—from ribosome biology to proteostasis and applications. Deadline: 3 March 2026
proteintermini.org/meeting
#ProteinTermini #Proteostasis #FEBS #EMBO @iubmb.bsky.social

16.02.2026 15:10 👍 12 🔁 8 💬 1 📌 0