Owen Tuck

Owen Tuck

@owentuck.bsky.social

chem bio PhD student in the Doudna Lab @Berkeley

177 followers144 following34 posts

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Owen Tuck
@owentuck.bsky.social

Our nuclease-protease story is out! We explored a fascinating case of coevolution and modularity in prokaryotic immune systems: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Thanks to wonderful coauthors/collaborators/friends, the whole @doudna-lab.bsky.social and everyone at @innovativegenomics.bsky.social

science.orgRecurrent acquisition of nuclease-protease pairs in antiviral immunityAntiviral immune systems diversify by integrating new genes into existing pathways, creating new mechanisms of viral resistance. We identified genes encoding a predicted nuclease paired with a trypsin...

Owen Tuck reposted

Sofia Luengo-Woods
@sluengo.bsky.social

We’re so excited to share our new paper, where we tackle the wealth of structural and functional diversity of anti-phage sensors across bacteria (1/6)

Nature@nature.com

Nature research paper: Diverse bacterial pattern recognition receptors sense the core phage proteome go.nature.com/45fpXCZ

go.nature.comDiverse bacterial pattern recognition receptors sense the core phage proteome - NatureSystematic analysis of prokaryotic STAND NTPases — relatives of animal and plant immune receptors — uncovers diverse antiviral sensors that detect most of the core structural and replicative proteins of bacteriophages.

Owen Tuck 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

Owen Tuck reposted

Aude Bernheim
@audeber.bsky.social

Bacterial genomes encode a rich repertoire of antiphage systems, but we still know surprisingly little about when these systems are actually expressed. In this preprint, Lucas Paoli et al, ask what shapes antiphage systems expression in native contexts. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.orgEnvironment and physiology shape antiphage system expressionBacteria and archaea encode on average ten antiphage systems. Quorum sensing, cellular, or transcription factors can regulate specific systems (CRISPR-Cas, CBASS). Yet, a systematic assessment of anti...

Owen Tuck reposted

Erez Yirmiya
@erezyirmiya.bsky.social

I’m happy to share our new preprint! We uncovered the full diversity of bacterial TIR-based antiviral immune signaling, massively expanded the known diversity of Thoeris systems, and revealed conservation of TIR-derived immune signals across the tree of life. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.orgSystematic discovery of TIR-based immune signaling systems in bacteriaToll/interleukin-1 receptor (TIR) domains are important for immune signaling across humans, plants and bacteria. These domains were recently found to produce immune signaling molecules in plant immuni...

Owen Tuck reposted

Alexander Harms
@aharms485.bsky.social

🚨Preprint alert - this is a big one! We transfer the revolutionary power of TnSeq to bacteriophages. Our HIDEN-SEQ links the "dark matter" genes of your favorite phage to any selectable phenotype, guiding the path from fun observations to molecular mechanisms. A thread 1/8

Owen Tuck reposted

Simone Alma Evans
@simone-alma.bsky.social

I am so excited to share our project with you! We find prokaryotic proteases activate toxic enzymes and pores as a modular strategy in phage defense. We studied four fascinating protease-toxin pairs that are abundant across bacterial genomes: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

biorxiv.orgProteolytic activation of diverse antiviral defense modules in prokaryotesLinked protease–effector modules are widespread in prokaryotic antiviral defense, yet the mechanisms of most remain poorly understood. Here we show that four of the most prevalent modules—metallo-β-la...

Owen Tuck reposted

Osterman Ilya
@ostermanilya.bsky.social

Fascinating discovery - anti-phage defense protein is a proenzyme that is cleaved by partner protease after phage infection and all three! products of cleavage form active nuclease.

Owen Tuck@owentuck.bsky.social

Our nuclease-protease story is out! We explored a fascinating case of coevolution and modularity in prokaryotic immune systems: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Thanks to wonderful coauthors/collaborators/friends, the whole @doudna-lab.bsky.social and everyone at @innovativegenomics.bsky.social

science.orgRecurrent acquisition of nuclease-protease pairs in antiviral immunityAntiviral immune systems diversify by integrating new genes into existing pathways, creating new mechanisms of viral resistance. We identified genes encoding a predicted nuclease paired with a trypsin...

Owen Tuck reposted

Jeremy Barr
@jeremyjbarr.bsky.social

Very excited to share the latest work from our lab, which was published today in Nature! nature.com/articles/s41... PhD graduate and now post-doc Sofia Dahlman, along with co-senior author Sam Forster from The Hudson and other researchers from our lab and others.

nature.comIsolation, engineering and ecology of temperate phages from the human gut - NatureHuman host-associated cellular products may act as induction agents for bacteriophages.

Owen Tuck reposted

Dan Portik
@dportik.bsky.social

New pre-print from the Banfield lab, highlighting an interesting case of 1.5Mb megaplasmids found in human gut. Plasmid genomes were resolved using #PacBio HiFi sequencing with hifiasm-meta for #metagenome assembly. Host association was detected using epigenetic signals. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

doi.orgMegaplasmids associate with Escherichia coli and other EnterobacteriaceaeHumans and animals are ubiquitously colonized by Enterobacteriaceae , a bacterial family that contains both commensals and clinically significant pathogens. Here, we report Enterobacteriaceae megaplas...

Owen Tuck reposted

Ben Adler
@benadler.bsky.social

Today in @nature.com , we highlight how a cousin of CRISPR-Cas10, mCpol, establishes an evolutionary trap in anti-phage immune systems. Check out @erinedoherty.bsky.social and my work from @doudna-lab.bsky.social lab here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comA miniature CRISPR–Cas10 enzyme confers immunity by inhibitory signalling - NaturePanoptes, an anti-phage defence system against virus-mediated immune suppression, is revealed.

Owen Tuck reposted

Asaf Levy
@asaflevylab.bsky.social

A recent cool preprint by John Whitney's lab on a new family of antibacterial proteins secreted by Gram-positive bacteria that enter and kill a broad spectrum of bacteria. Cell entry is receptor-independent and relies on cleavage by a co-secreted protease and the PMF. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

biorxiv.orgProteolytically activated antibacterial toxins inhibit the growth of diverse Gram-positive bacteriaMany species of bacteria produce small-molecule antibiotics that enter and kill a wide range of competitor microbes. However, diffusible antibacterial proteins that share this broad-spectrum activity ...

Owen Tuck reposted

Erin Doherty
@erinedoherty.bsky.social

Excited to share our new preprint co-led by @jnoms.bsky.social! Here we reveal an exceptional diversity of viral 2H phosphodiesterases (PDEs) that enable immune evasion by selectively degrading oligonucleotide-based messengers. This 2H PDE fold has evolved striking substrate breath & specificity.

biorxiv.orgDivergent viral phosphodiesterases for immune signaling evasionCyclic dinucleotides (CDNs) and other short oligonucleotides play fundamental roles in immune system activation in organisms ranging from bacteria to humans. In response, viruses use phosphodiesterase...

Owen Tuck reposted

Jason Nomburg
@jnoms.bsky.social

Very happy to share that I will be starting my lab at AITHYRA in October! My lab will use structural bioinformatics and functional genomics to understand the function of viral proteins, with a special emphasis on understanding how viruses subvert innate immunity.

AITHYRA Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences@aithyra.bsky.social

Welcome JASON NOMBURG! With great pleasure we announce that Jason Nomburg is one of the Starting Principal Investigators LS who will join AITHYRA in October 2025. Jason wants to understand the function of proteins in the virome. More information: www.oeaw.ac.at/aithyra/rese... #AITHYRA #StartingPI

Owen Tuck reposted

Sorek Lab
@soreklab.bsky.social

We wrote a review on the free nucleotide pool as a central playground in human, bacterial, and plant immunity – now out in Nature Reviews in Immunology www.nature.com/articles/s41... Was fun to write this piece with Dina Hochhauser! Here is a thread to explain the premises 1/

nature.comManipulation of the nucleotide pool in human, bacterial and plant immunity - Nature Reviews ImmunologyModification of the nucleotide pool is emerging as key to innate immunity in animals, plants and bacteria. This Review explains how immune pathways conserved from bacteria to humans manipulate the nuc...

Owen Tuck reposted

Doudna Lab
@doudna-lab.bsky.social

‼️ New pre-print from co-leads @owentuck.bsky.social and Jason Hu! Check out this fascinating example of how coevolution enables defense system innovation.

Owen Tuck@owentuck.bsky.social

Excited to finally share this work! We noticed a pair of genes - a nuclease and a protease - shuffles between antiviral systems. We show how proteolysis activates the nuclease, triggering defense in known and unknown immune contexts. tinyurl.com/2uwwy4ty

tinyurl.comRecurrent acquisition of nuclease-protease pairs in antiviral immunityAntiviral immune systems diversify by integrating new genes into existing pathways, creating new mechanisms of viral resistance. We identified genes encoding a predicted nuclease paired with a trypsin...
Owen Tuck
@owentuck.bsky.social

Excited to finally share this work! We noticed a pair of genes - a nuclease and a protease - shuffles between antiviral systems. We show how proteolysis activates the nuclease, triggering defense in known and unknown immune contexts. tinyurl.com/2uwwy4ty

tinyurl.comRecurrent acquisition of nuclease-protease pairs in antiviral immunityAntiviral immune systems diversify by integrating new genes into existing pathways, creating new mechanisms of viral resistance. We identified genes encoding a predicted nuclease paired with a trypsin...

Owen Tuck reposted

Ben Adler
@benadler.bsky.social

It is finally out! Muntathar Al-Shimary, @doudna-lab.bsky.social , @cresslab.bsky.social and I present a gene knockdown tool that works in diverse bacteriophages: CRISPRi through antisense RNA Targeting (CRISPRi-ART)! Check it out @naturemicrobiol.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comCRISPRi-ART enables functional genomics of diverse bacteriophages using RNA-binding dCas13d - Nature MicrobiologyLeveraging RNA-targeting dCas13d enables selective interference with phage protein translation and facilitates measurement of phage gene fitness at a transcriptome-wide scale.

Owen Tuck reposted

Sorek Lab
@soreklab.bsky.social

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...

Owen Tuck reposted

Aude Bernheim
@audeber.bsky.social

👋 Hi antiphage defense community, we are soon releasing an update of DefenseFinder. We are doing our best to include all the great discoveries from the community, but with so much going on we might miss things. Please answer wt preprints/papers with new systems or mail/git them to us. 🙏

Owen Tuck
@owentuck.bsky.social

My friend @benadler.bsky.social and I co-led this work. Huge thanks to collaborators Emily Armbruster & Joe Pogliano, as well as talented Berkeley MCB students Arushi Lahiri, Jason Hu (a star roton), and Julia Zhou (since graduated!). Lastly, we're indebted to Jennifer for her support. 14/14

Owen Tuck
@owentuck.bsky.social

We propose Hachiman activates in response to abberant DNA states. DNA ends load into the helicase, triggering ATP hydrolysis and release of HamA. HamA chews up DNA, potentially amplifying the immune response by creating more sites for HamAB loading. 11/14

Owen Tuck
@owentuck.bsky.social

There are functional symmetries and phylogenetic relationships between HamB and the Ski2-like recombination helicase Hel308. Hel308 is only present in archaea and metazoans. Could the two be evolutionarily linked? 12/14

Owen Tuck
@owentuck.bsky.social

But why is Hachiman so effective against diverse phages? The trigger must be central to phage infection. We show that direct DNA damage induced by a drug activates Hachiman in the absence of phage! This key insight implies HamAB recognizes DNA damage as a viral signature. 9/14

Owen Tuck
@owentuck.bsky.social

In another cryo-EM structure, we visualized nuclease-dead HamAB binding intact DNA in an orthogonal mode. We imagine this 'sliding' or binding state enables the helicase to thread ssDNA lesions into the active site. 10/14

Owen Tuck
@owentuck.bsky.social

In another surprise, we discovered HamB is a DNA helicase! A set of structures shows DNA entering the HamB active site. We resolved 'ratcheting' states that lead to large domain movements upon activation. This motion may release the HamA nuclease. 7/14

Owen Tuck
@owentuck.bsky.social

Our collaborators Emily Armbruster and Joe Pogliano @ucsd showed Hachiman in action. When infected with phage, HamB completely shreds both phage and host DNA, leaving behind "phantom cells" devoid of genomes. Infected cells sacrifice themselves in service of the colony. 8/14

Owen Tuck
@owentuck.bsky.social

The structure led us to identify an active site for the HamA DUF! HamA is a nuclease homologous to nucleases in Type IIS restriction modification systems. HamA insertions mediate binding to HamB. The HamAB complex cuts DNA in vitro. 6/14

Owen Tuck
@owentuck.bsky.social

@soreklab.bsky.social discovered a host of prokaryotic immune systems in a seminal 2018 work. One system - Hachiman - caught our eye. Named for a Japanese protector deity, Hachiman is composed of only two genes. The first, HamA, contains only a domain of unknown function (DUF1837). 2/14

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