Jerónimo Rodríguez-Beltrán

New paper out in @pnas.org, and it made the cover! 👁️ We represent plasmids as circles and mutations as dots, resembling an eye, because in this paper we literally 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ plasmids evolve. ‼️Check Paula’s 🧵 and the paper👇 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘀𝗺𝗶𝗱 𝗺𝘂𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗰𝗼𝗽𝘆 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Excited to share our new preprint where we ask: How does temp alter susceptibility to kanamycin, selection and spread of resistance in E. coli with the plasmids R1 and RP4. tl;dr AMR @ high temp is due to higher growth rates and susceptibility, increasing selection. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Maintenance of restriction-modification system diversity creates pan-immunity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.09.757998v1

When is on-person evolution dominated by neutral vs adaptive forces? If you're looking for a postdoc position and this is a question that interests you, please see my lab website and reach out! [More info in next posts]

#plasmidbiology #plasmid Just out! 🚀 Thrilled by our discovery: the function of the C-terminal domain of MOBH1 relaxases! We uncovered this thanks to a fertility inhibitor encoded by a parasitic mobile genetic element. Congrats to Florence on a great piece of work! 👏 academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Global genomic epidemiology of multi-carbapenemase Enterobacterales https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.07.757280v1

Ever wondered how plasmid mobility differs across natural environments? In our new ISME Commun paper, Sebastian Bonhoeffer, @jhuisman.bsky.social and I ask: do F-like plasmids in E.coli associated with cows, pigs and poultry differ in their ability to transfer? [1/6] doi.org/10.1093/isme...

Postdoc position available in my group to work on ERC funded project on evolutionary biology of antibiotic resistance. Looking for someone with expertise in bacterial genetics, AMR, and evolutionary biology. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DSZ416/p...

New paper from the lab, out in Nature Microbiology. We ran CRISPRi screens to ask what genes E. coli needs in order to live in a gut and what this can tell us about the gut environment itself. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-026-02471-8

Now published from a fun collaboration, please see 🧵 academic.oup.com/ismecommun/a...

Happy to see our work on the evolution of antiviral repertoires in P4-like satellites and their P2-like helper phages (check out the 🧵 👇) out in @narjournal.bsky.social 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/nar/... #phagesky #MicroSky #evosky

Mixed-species interactions constrain diversification and shape biofilm evolution Klebsiella pneumoniae + Pseudomonas protegens + Pseudomonas aeruginosa in ISME Communications from Mozammel Hoque, with Diane McDougald, Scott Rice, @vscooper.micropopbio.org academic.oup.com/ismecommun/a...

New preprint from the lab: The Latent Simplicity of Microbial Ecological Interactions www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We're excited about this one. We find that high-order microbial interactions often obey simple linear laws, making microbial communities far more predictable than one might expect.

New preprint from the lab: The Latent Simplicity of Microbial Ecological Interactions www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We're excited about this one. We find that high-order microbial interactions often obey simple linear laws making microbial communities far more predictable than one might expect

Canonically minimal RNA-guided insertion sequences expand into large elements that disseminate antimicrobial resistance https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.14.744561v1

La evolución bacteriana no siempre sigue el camino más ventajoso, sino el más fácil.  Más info: https://f.mtr.cool/tsurwbxhks Artículo en @natcomms.nature.com  https://f.mtr.cool/tyxydaxyna

📢 We have an open PhD position to study the evolution of antibiotic resistance plasmids! Ad and Application (English below): jobs.uni-kiel.de/jobposting/8... Candidates who read the recommended papers (see ad) will be well positioned to prepare a strong application. Deadline: 6. Septermber 2026.

The latent simplicity of microbial ecological interactions https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.30.741683v1

🚨 New preprint with @annadewar.bsky.social 🚨 Do plasmids “ameliorate” towards their hosts? Maybe… We show that the classic plasmid-host GC correlation is confounded by population structure, and argue that plasmid mobility shapes the opportunity for host-associated compositional evolution.

Significant update to the AllTheBacteria paper, including discovering new antimicrobial peptides and testing in vitro and vivo. This has grown into a fantastic collaboration!

1/10 🚨Preprint! One RING to rule them all (phages)👑💍⚔️ Bacteria build giant DNA-scaffolded RNase rings (larger than the ribosome!) to shut down viral infection🧬🧵👇 biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New Essay: 'Resistance potentiators: Evolutionary catalysts of antibiotic resistance' To understand the evolutionary drivers of #AMR we need to move beyond resistance genes to thinking about the ability of genomes to generate AMR variants. #microsky journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Spain's largest research organization confronts its dark past | Science | AAAS “This was a historical debt of the institution,” Ana Crespo, president of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Spain www.science.org/content/arti...

🧬 I'm looking for a Researcher (2 years) in Molecular Biology and Antimicrobial Resistance at UiT The ❄️Arctic University of Norway (Tromsø). 🔬 If you have experience building and screening enzyme libraries and characterising the variants that come out, get in touch.

Fresh out of the lab! Our new preprint is now up on BioRxiv, exploring how the beneficial bacterium Pseudomonas putida controls its T6SS nanoweapon. It turns out the Gac/Rsm pathway acts as a strict molecular brake on the system. 👇 (1/4) Read the full preprint here: doi.org/10.64898/202...

#microsky New preprint from the lab! Widespread immune systems protect bacteria against conjugative plasmids www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Kudos to the extremely talented lead author Ludovic Poiré! Key contributions by @francoisrousset.bsky.social and also help from C. Lesterlin/TacC lab. 🧵⬇️

How do #bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics ? This Essay by @craigmaclean.bskyb.social &co argues that the evolution of #AntibioticResistance is catalyzed by ‘resistance potentiators’ that accelerate evolution in a trait-specific manner. 🧪 #AcademicSky @biology.ox.ac.uk plos.io/4flYKnF

Widespread immune systems protect bacteria against conjugative plasmids https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.06.735840v1

New preprint from our lab Statistical learning of bacterial growth in combinatorially constructed environments, led by brilliant PhD student Andrea Arrabal. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We systematically study nutrient-nutrient interactions in bacterial growth under carbon-limiting conditions.

Bacterial Mercury Resistance Reveals a Robust Species-Structured Human Antimicrobial Mobilome https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.26.734528v1

New #microsky#AMR Perspective paper with @penamiller.bsky.social rdcu.be/fqBJo ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE (IE MIC) AND TOLERANCE ARE NOT BACTERIAL TRAITS! Please read on if you want an explanation for this provocative claim.

Latest work from my lab, in which @amycrobes.bsky.social probes the evolutionary consequences of prophages potentiating death at otherwise sublethal antibiotic doses

Evolutionary rescue in a phage community! New paper from former PhD student, Sam Greenrod, with brilliant colleague @craigmaclean.bsky.social : academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

New preprint from our lab, in collaboration with the Santiago/Ruiz-Perez group at UVA. We found a plasmid-encoded DNA-binding protein that preferentially binds its own plasmid! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Thread:

New Perspective out co-led with Lisa Pagani! We look at how microbiome ecology and evolution shape AMR across scales, from within-host communities to hospitals and environments, and how mathematical models can help us understand them. @natmicrobiol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Spotlight on our recent work by @emmajbanks.bsky.social @pavol.bsky.social and team!!! @johninnescentre.bsky.social Thank you very much, @fnobrega.bsky.social, for this great piece!!!

We studied the causes of #collateralsensitivity from a single enzyme perspective using and how stable such #tradeoffs are during #coselection. In short, resistance evolution can cause strong but migigatable trade-offs. Preproof is now available on @JMB: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Excited to share this new paper from the lab: academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...! See thread below

Molecular pet or parasite? Exploring selection for vertical and horizontal plasmid transfer https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.02.729688v1

Our study comparing promoter existence and emergence in random vs genomic DNA is finally published!!! TLDR: the E. coli genome has more promoters than random DNA (even in intergenic regions), and promoters emerge ~3x more readily from random DNA than genomic DNA. (1/2)

"Function-specific epistasis shapes evolutionary trajectories towards antibiotic resistance". Huge parallel experimental evolution effort in E. coli under antimicrobial pressure by @gabypetrungaro.bsky.social at Bollenbach Lab at University of Cologne. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

A livestream of a volcano in the Philippines captured a meteor crashing to Earth today. What are the odds? Mayon Volcano, Location: Albay, Luzon, Philippines

New online! Revisiting the life cycle of temperate phages

New paper out! 🔈 Genomic Characterization of the RyC collection: 50 Multidrug Resistant Clinical Isolates of Escherichia coli and Klebsiella spp. 50 MDR gut isolates, 2 sequencing platforms, 4 “omes,” and 1 mission: provide a resource to decode AMR and MGE dynamics www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Having just finished my MCSA Fellowship with him, I would really encourage those looking to do a postdoc in microbial adaptation to check out Alex Couces lab in Madrid. Alex is a gifted researcher, and Madrid is a wonderful city to live in :) Details in link below: evoldir.net/brian/evoldi...

Happy to share that our latest research on the eco-evolutionary dynamics of MDR plasmids and PDPs is now out (open access vAuthor) in The ISME Journal doi.org/10.1093/isme... Here, we explored how plasmid-dependent phages (PDPs) act as a selective pressure against the spread of multidrug resistance

@biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social Who knew ParB-CTPase fold can kill!!! A protein fold best known for segregating chromosomes…can be transformed into a potent antibacterial toxin in some plant and animal pathogens. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

This paper is 💥 Really nice work by @nachodequinto.bsky.social