Fletcher Lab

Receptor clustering is a common theme in viral detection, but whether detection directly hinders genome replication is less clear. Excited to share the Z in RZ-type E3s: ZNFX1 is an RNA helicase that builds ubiquitin chains leading to aggregates that ensnare viral RNA. www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Huge congratulations, Lillie and team!

How do human cells defend against viruses? @sgfern.bsky.social discovers that human immune proteins named ISGs target ancient features of replication shared between animal and bacterial viruses – opening analysis of human immunity to the power of bacterial genetics www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Alternative splicing broadens antiviral diversity at the human OAS2 locus Emma Davies et al @fletcherlab.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

We are incredibly excited to see our most recent story out @nature.com today:HIV triggers CD4-signaling to remodel nuclear pores and license infection!A heroic effort led by our very own @d-mesner.bsky.social & @mattvxwhelan.bsky.social! @blizardinstitute.bsky.social Link: tinyurl.com/HIVNup 1/11

How diverse is bacterial immunity ? We report in @science.org how language models allowed us to predict 2.4M antiphage proteins spanning >23K novel potential systems. 👏 @emordret.bsky.social, @alexhv.bsky.social & al doi.org/10.1126/scie... Explore them here defensefinder.mdmlab.fr/wiki/refseq_...

Registration now open! 2026 #EMBO #Ubiquitin Workshop set in stunning Monopoli, Puglia 🇮🇹 Cutting edge science, great speakers, short talk opportunities, travel awards Limited spaces. Dont miss out - register early! Registration & more info: meetings.embo.org/event/26-ubi...

Our work on the role of Ufmylation on ribosome quality control on the ER is out! Great work of two terrific first authors Milica and @alessandrick.bsky.social together with our wonderful collaborators, the one and only Dagdas lab @plantophagy.bsky.social!

🔬 We’re hiring in Zürich🇨🇭! My lab is recruiting a new PhD student in molecular immunology (interferons, autoantibodies & viral disease). Position is fully-funded. Starting date anticipated to be late 2026/early 2027. Further details and how to apply: tinyurl.com/IMVPhD2026 Deadline 1st May 2026.

PhD position in our lab - 4-year funded by BBSRC and @nrpdtp.bsky.social in collaboration with @earlhaminst.bsky.social and Inspiralis Ltd. Open to UK fee qualifying students - UK citizens and citizens of Ireland (residency requirement), etc biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/projects/how...

CBASS is a cyclic nucleotide-based antiviral system in bacteria that is related to cGAS-STING signaling in animals. One of the big questions is how CBASS is activated during phage infection? We made some progress on this during my final year in the Kranzusch lab. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I am incredibly excited to share that I will start my independent lab at the @unidue-zmb.bsky.social at the @unidue.bsky.social as Junior Professor of Cellular Biochemistry. Research in my lab has the goal to decipher the ubiquitin code! There are multiple open positions! (1/3)

Excited to share our new paper uncovering how FANCD2 recognises various DNA repair proteins www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @hw1o9.bsky.social

🧐 What if metabolic defects are not just a consequence of inflammatory disease - but actively contribute to it? Inflammation and metabolism are deeply intertwined, but the molecular links remain unclear. Our new paper in Cell Death & Differentiation uncovers one. 🧵👇 nature.com/articles/s41...

Really happy to see this one out: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Alibek's drive & great coll w/ friends @gekaragoz.bsky.social & E. Hallacli resulted in a cool story that starts with our beloved #Marchantia and ends with iPSC-derived neurons 🤩🤪 A short 🧵

I have multiple positions available to join my lab from this summer: #postdoc, #student and #technician. Adverts to follow but see www.saurinlab.com for further details. #senescence, #mitosis, #cellcycle, #phosphorylation are the key areas. Email me if interested.

I am excited to share our latest preprint - An evolutionarily divergent herpesvirus with a giant tail. Featuring symmetry breaking and genome annotation from structure using ModelAngelo. doi.org/10.64898/202...

Hello world! I am excited to announce my lab is open at the University of Utah in the Department of Biochemistry. We are looking for scientists at all levels interested in studying host-virus interactions in both bacteria and animals. Come join us in beautiful Utah! (photo is 10 steps from lab)

Super new paper from @ubch-alice.bsky.social and Danny Huang @cruk-si.bsky.social – a great deal of hard work and development behind this story. From a technical perspective, this reads as a primer for tapping 'unconventional' E3s. Very well done Alice and team!

Excited to share our work into ubiquitin E1-E2 specificity mechanisms. CryoEM visualising #ubiquitin transfer,biochemistry,evolution @labhofmann.bsky.social & tissue expression analyses @psarkies.bsky.social Big thanks to the team,reviewers & handling editor @dimitristypas.bsky.social rdcu.be/eTRdR

We’re thrilled to onboard Alice Wicks @ubch-alice.bsky.social in the lab this week. Alice trained with Danny Huang @cruk-si.bsky.social and has developed exciting new ideas for co-opting E3s for targeted degradation. Welcome to the team, Alice.

We’ve made some new tools to manipulate N-recognins. Check them out in our preprint. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Join @uofglasgow.bsky.social for a funded 3.5 year PhD programme: www.gla.ac.uk/colleges/mvl... Also up for grabs is a project on antiviral PROTACs, supervised by us and the France lab (School of Chemistry) should ubiquitin and viruses appeal! Please get in touch with any questions.

Excited to share the peer-reviewed version of our work, now online in @embojournal.org! Big thanks to our reviewers and @hvodermaier.bsky.social for facilitating this process. Looking forward to continuing this fun collaboration with @michaelnadbio.bsky.social! www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

A #postdoc position in atypical #ubiquitin signalling and protein binder engineering is opening soon in my lab at DTU Bioengineering! Get in touch if you are interested.

🎉 Fletcher lab PhD student Emma Davies reflecting on her prize winning talk - we’re super proud of you Emma - many congrats! 🎉 @cvrinfo.bsky.social @uofgsii.bsky.social @uofgmvls.bsky.social

Our work on the Panoptes antiphage system is published! Here we find that Panoptes "watches" the cytosol for phage immune evasion proteins–captured in this illustration by Clair Huffine of Insight Illustrations. A beautiful example of the effector triggered immunity paradigm.

Viro3D paper is out! We predicted 85,000 protein structures from human & animal viruses. 1/5 🧵 📑 Paper doi.org/10.1038/s443... 🔭 Explore virosphere viro3d.cvr.gla.ac.uk

Allosteric activation of a ubiquitin ligase by an internal kinase domain! Congratulations to our team member Thornton Fokkens for this fascinating discovery in a neglected disease area with strong therapeutic need. Many thanks to all our great collaborators! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🚨📝 New work via @thepandemicinst.bsky.social now preprinted! We took ~19000 sequences of avian influenza virus and trained machine learning models on >40000 genomic/proteomic features - the resulting ensemble can predict zoonotic potential with AUC=0.95. More below! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A few months ago, our review “The Molecular Toolbox for Linkage Type-Specific Analysis of Ubiquitin Signaling” 🧬🧰🛠️ came out in ChemBioChem. Time to give it a spotlight! chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Had a brilliant time at the 9th International Calicivirus Conference in Banff (www.calicivirusconference.com) - phenomenal science in a phenomenal setting! It was great to present my PhD work so far (thanks @dbhella.bsky.social for the pic). Here's to many more!

Pre-print: our description of RZ affiliate ZNFX1 is now online. On binding viral RNA, ZNFX1 generates parallel Ub currents, coordinating Ub-dependent RNA silencing and aggregate resolution. Huge effort from first authors Dan Squair and @eilidhrivers.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

So excited to see our newest study out in print! Led by the brilliant @jgezelle.bsky.social and @sophiekorn.bsky.social, we discovered how viruses from highly divergent families converge on a shared RNA structure mechanism to inhibit cellular nucleases. #RNAsky #LoveVirology

Glad to share the final version of our story about the UBR4 complex, an E4 ligase protein quality control hub @science.org. Now with more cryo-EM structures and a deeper dive into substrate recognition, especially escaped mitochondrial proteins @clausenlab.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Happy to share our work on the structure and function of the unusual E3 ligase ZNFX1 @cp-cell.bsky.social. It uses a nucleic acid-activated transthiolation mechanism, ubiquitinating and clustering RNA to protect cells in an immune response. @clausenlab.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Opening for a biochemist to help us in the characterisation of novel ubiquitin-based antivirals. Diverse backgrounds welcomed; a keen sense of adventure is a must 😁 Details and criteria are below; please get in touch with any questions. www.jobs.gla.ac.uk/job/research...

Post 5/5 🧵 IMPACT: This transforms tick-borne disease research: 🎯 New drug targets 🎯 Understanding vector competence 🎯 Virus-tick evolution Testing if mechanisms work across other tick viruses next. 👨‍🔬 collaborative project with @alf-castello.bsky.social and @alainkohlvirology.bsky.social

A few years back we discovered a dual hybrid protein modification composed of ADP-ribose dinucleotide and ubiquitin (ADPr-Ub). Now we reveal that ADPr-Ub can be further ubiquitinated by the E3 ubiquitin ligase RNF114! www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

How predictable are the evolutionary pathways leading to insecticide resistance? Why do some species gain resistance while others do not? We explore these questions in our latest preprint. A huge effort from Rebecca Frkic, Alex Giang, Colin Jackson and the team. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We are looking for a PhD student in (mostly )wet-lab biochemistry to work on short linear motifs, intrinsically disordered regions, in the context of the Marie Curie network "IDPro". More info an apply here: www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...