Zach LaTurner

Zach LaTurner

@micronaut.bsky.social

Postdoc in Cress Lab @ Innovative Genomics Institute. I am interested in horizontal gene transfer and microbial community engineering to help the environment.

194 followers434 following14 posts

Pinned

Zach LaTurner
@micronaut.bsky.social

The paper on my Ph.D. work is fully online! We used a ribozyme that barcodes 16S rRNA to track the transduction range of phage P1 in a synthetic community and real wastewater communities, while diving deeper into the unique range conferred by P1s two tail fibers. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comCross-order detection of bacteriophage transduction in microbial communities using RNA barcoding - Nature CommunicationsBacteriophages are the most abundant life form on earth and can be applied to eliminate or engineer bacteria. Here, authors demonstrate RNA barcoding as a high throughput tool to measure bacteriophage...

Zach LaTurner reposted

Vivek Mutalik
@vivekmutalik.bsky.social

Happy to share that @averynoonan.bsky.social paper “Phylogeny-agnostic strain-level prediction of phage–host interactions from genomes using machine learning” is now published in @natmicrobiol.nature.com 🎉🎊 👉🏽 rdcu.be/nR2NizD7H5va

Avery Noonan@averynoonan.bsky.social

We built GenoPHI: a machine learning workflow that predicts phage-host interactions at strain level. This could help rapidly select phages to treat drug-resistant bacterial infections or for microbiome engineering without exhaustive lab testing. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

biorxiv.orgbiorxiv.org

Zach LaTurner reposted

Cress Lab
@cresslab.bsky.social

Our lab is proud to present our latest work harnessing Bridge Recombinase for genome-scale editing in diverse bacteria, microbiome editing, and programmable horizontal gene transfer.

bioRxiv Synthetic Biology@biorxiv-synthbio.bsky.social

Bridge recombinase enables versatile rewriting of bacterial genomes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.29.721476v1

Zach LaTurner reposted

Tominaga K. (tomiken)
@pacyc184.bsky.social

Plasmids weaponize conjugation to eliminate non-permissive recipients | bioRxiv https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.10.705089v1?rss=1

biorxiv.orgPlasmids weaponize conjugation to eliminate non-permissive recipientsHorizontal gene transfer via conjugative plasmids is a major driver of bacterial evolution. While antibiotic exposure selects for the resistance genes carried by some plasmids, much uncertainty remains in how plasmids persist and spread in microbial communities in the absence of such external selection. Here we show that conjugative plasmids drive their own spread, in part, by using their transfer machinery to enforce a join-or-die ultimatum that selectively eliminates non-permissive recipients through the process of lethal zygosis -- the T4SS-mediated elimination of recipients that fail to establish the plasmid. We found that this contact-dependent killing effectively clears a competitive niche for plasmid donors by turning bacterial immune systems into a fatal liability. Specifically, cells resisting plasmid establishment via CRISPR-Cas or Restriction-Modification systems are selectively killed because they fail to acquire the protective exclusion genes encoded on the plasmid, leading to lethal unregulated transfer. We leveraged this insight to resolve an obstacle in bacterial editing by developing "shielded" transposon vectors that co-deliver exclusion genes, increasing the efficiency of gene editing by orders of magnitude. Our results reveal the role of "coercive assimilation" in horizontal gene transfer, exposing a trade-off where the advantage of bacterial immunity to foreign DNA is counterbalanced by lethal zygosis. ### Competing Interest Statement The Regents of the University of California have patents pending related to this work on which J.N.V.M. and B.E.R. are inventors. Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, https://ror.org/011x6n313, G-2302-06692 Lyda Hill Philanthropies, https://ror.org/032sf2845 Acton Family Giving Valhalla Foundation Hastings/Quillin Fund - an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation CH Foundation, https://ror.org/05nnhd665 Laura and Gary Lauder and Family the Sea Grape Foundation Emerson Collective (United States), https://ror.org/04537p149 Mike Schroepfer and Erin Hoffman Family Fund Anne Wojcicki Foundation Shurl and Kay Curci Foundation, https://ror.org/05t9fgt79 Innovative Genomics Institute, https://ror.org/01r4tcq81

Zach LaTurner reposted

Michael Baym
@baym.lol

Yesterday, the NIH R35 “Outstanding Investigator” grant to fund scientists in my lab studying antibiotic resistance was terminated for reasons not related to the content of the science, or any actions taken by me or members of my lab

Zach LaTurner
@micronaut.bsky.social

Very excited to share a manuscript at the heart of my PhD! We added an RNA-memory device (RAM) to phage P1 to identify transduction hosts in synthetic and wastewater microbial communities in high throughput. Also, I am on the post-doc market, so please reach out if interested! 1/6 t.ly/a8k9O

t.lyCross-order detection of bacteriophage transduction in communities using ribosomal RNA barcodingBacteriophages (phages) facilitate gene transfer and microbial evolution in all ecosystems and have applications as tools for engineering microbiomes and as antimicrobials. Historic efforts to map pha...
View full thread
Zach LaTurner
@micronaut.bsky.social

Finally, we dug into one of the elements that determines P1 host range by characterizing hosts associated with P1s two unique tail fibers. RAM detected statistically significant enrichment of hosts infected by phages containing one tail fiber relative to the other tail fiber. 5/6

Zach LaTurner
@micronaut.bsky.social

On the whole, RAM is an exciting tool for phage host-range studies. It could generate massive amounts of data for machine learning pipelines. Control of the barcode also means we can test many experimental conditions in parallel. Additionally, our preliminary data shows it works in lytic phages. 😉

Zach LaTurner
@micronaut.bsky.social

Very excited to share a manuscript at the heart of my PhD! We added an RNA-memory device (RAM) to phage P1 to identify transduction hosts in synthetic and wastewater microbial communities in high throughput. Also, I am on the post-doc market, so please reach out if interested! 1/6 t.ly/a8k9O

t.lyCross-order detection of bacteriophage transduction in communities using ribosomal RNA barcodingBacteriophages (phages) facilitate gene transfer and microbial evolution in all ecosystems and have applications as tools for engineering microbiomes and as antimicrobials. Historic efforts to map pha...
View full thread
Zach LaTurner
@micronaut.bsky.social

When added to the genome of P1 and P1 phagemids, RAM was able to barcode known P1 hosts in monoculture. We also added the constructs to a synthetic community of ESKAPE pathogens to assay host potential of many organisms at once and identified a novel host of P1 phagemids in Salmonella enterica. 3/6

Zach LaTurner
@micronaut.bsky.social

The ease with which RAM can be used in real microbial communities is one of its biggest advantages as a host identification tool. When we added our modified P1 to wastewater influent, RAM identified known hosts in the Enterobacterales family and completely novel hosts in the Aeromonadales order. 4/6

Zach LaTurner
@micronaut.bsky.social

Very excited to share a manuscript at the heart of my PhD! We added an RNA-memory device (RAM) to phage P1 to identify transduction hosts in synthetic and wastewater microbial communities in high throughput. Also, I am on the post-doc market, so please reach out if interested! 1/6 t.ly/a8k9O

t.lyCross-order detection of bacteriophage transduction in communities using ribosomal RNA barcodingBacteriophages (phages) facilitate gene transfer and microbial evolution in all ecosystems and have applications as tools for engineering microbiomes and as antimicrobials. Historic efforts to map pha...
Zach LaTurner
@micronaut.bsky.social

RAM is a ribozyme that can be coded into genetic constructs and which splices an RNA barcode onto host 16S rRNA. RT-qPCR can quantify the amount of barcoded 16S rRNA and amplicon sequencing the specific host species. See the recent paper in @natbiotech.nature.com for more info. 2/6 t.ly/AOiGt

t.lyInformation storage across a microbial community using universal RNA barcoding - Nature BiotechnologyBarcoding microbial ribosomal RNA creates a recording of gene transfer events without requiring translation.

Zach LaTurner reposted

Prashant K
@prash-k.bsky.social

We developed an RNA enzyme that adds barcodes to 16S rRNA to track bacterial DNA exchange in wastewater, identifying plasmid hosts via sequencing. This surpasses fluorescence methods by enabling multi-sample/plasmid analysis. Paper: go.nature.com/440gL5E. More technical details: shorturl.at/Y4KnA

go.nature.comInformation storage across a microbial community using universal RNA barcoding - Nature BiotechnologyBarcoding microbial ribosomal RNA creates a recording of gene transfer events without requiring translation.

Zach LaTurner reposted

lauren-stadler.bsky.social
@lauren-stadler.bsky.social

Fresh in @NatureBiotech! We developed a synthetic biology tool for tracking gene transfer in microbial communities and applied it to study plasmid hosts in a wastewater microbiome. Awesome collab with James Chappell & @joffsilberg.bsky.social and incredible students. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comInformation storage across a microbial community using universal RNA barcoding - Nature BiotechnologyBarcoding microbial ribosomal RNA creates a recording of gene transfer events without requiring translation.

You are up to date.