-
Mr Leandro Buhlmann (Institute of Molecular Infection Biology (IMIB), University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany)05/10/2026, 20:30Poster only
The P. aeruginosa infecting jumbo bacteriophage ΦKZ encodes 371 predicted genes, most of which are of unknown function. This limited characterization is partly attributable to its classification within the Chimalliviridae, a family of phages that assemble a nucleus-like compartment within the bacterial host. The phage nucleus encloses the viral genome to protect it from host defense systems...
Go to contribution page -
Hanna Martin (University of Groningen)05/10/2026, 20:31Poster only
Archaeal viruses represent a distinct and diverse group of infectious agents that challenge current models of virus–host interactions. Unlike viruses infecting other domains of life, archaeal viruses exhibit remarkable morphological and genetic diversity. To date, the number of archaeal viruses that have been isolated and characterized is relatively limited, which hinders the study of their...
Go to contribution page -
Nadejda Sigal (Tel Aviv University)05/10/2026, 20:33Poster only
A unique feature of temperate phages is the ability to protect their host bacteria from a second phage infection. Such protection is granted at the lysogenic state, where the phages persist as prophages integrated within the bacterial chromosome, expressing genes that defend the host and themselves from predation. Here, we report a prophage-encoded anti-phage defence system that inhibits DNA...
Go to contribution page -
Romi Hadary (Weizmann institute of science)05/10/2026, 20:34Poster only
Immune systems in animals, plants, and bacteria often rely on intracellular nucleotide signaling to activate immune responses in response to viral infection. Bacteriophages (phages) can evade these defenses by producing sponge proteins that bind and sequester immune signaling molecules. However, the full arsenal of phage sponges is currently unknown. We found that phage sponge proteins tend to...
Go to contribution page -
Prof. Sebastian Leptihn (HMU Erfurt)05/10/2026, 20:35Poster only
Our study investigated evolutionary dynamics in Klebsiella bacteriophage populations, focusing on a spontaneously emerged mutant exhibiting a bulls‑eye plaque morphology. Whole‑genome sequencing identified point mutations in tail proteins as the genetic basis for this variant. In vitro competition experiments revealed that independent runs did not always produce the same winner, with phage...
Go to contribution page -
Dr Wenlong Zhu (University of Exeter)05/10/2026, 20:36Poster only
Bacteria–phage interactions are commonly studied in monoculture, yet bacteria in nature experience interspecific competition that may alter their antiviral defences. We investigated whether competition directly regulates CRISPR-Cas immunity in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA14. Mathematical modelling predicted that competition-induced CRISPR regulation would cause rapid enrichment of CRISPR-immune...
Go to contribution page -
Huihui Li (Freie Universität Berlin,Institute of Biology-Microbiology)05/10/2026, 20:37Poster only
The EHEC O157:H7 outbreak strain EDL933 exhibits strong resistance against a broad range of phages and harbors three co-localized defense systems on O-island 172 (O172): Zorya II, Druantia III, and a ARMADA II system. To investigate the contribution and interplay of these systems, single and combined deletion mutants of these three Systems were generated in EDL933 and analyzed by EOP assays...
Go to contribution page -
Jack Bravo (Institute of Science and Technology Austria)05/10/2026, 20:38Poster only
Bacteria face constant invasion by mobile genetic elements such as plasmids and phages, and many have evolved guide-directed nucleases related to eukaryotic Argonaute proteins to combat these threats. How such systems achieve specific recognition of foreign, supercoiled plasmid DNA without simply guessing based on guide sequence has been a longstanding puzzle. Here we describe a short...
Go to contribution page -
Dr Maik Wolfram-Schauerte05/10/2026, 20:39Poster only
Bacteriophage genomes encode large numbers of proteins without functional annotation, collectively termed the phage “unknome.” This limits both mechanistic understanding of phage biology and the discovery of proteins with potential applications in biotechnology and therapy. Current annotation approaches rely primarily on sequence or structural homology and provide indispensable first evidence...
Go to contribution page -
Oleg Dmytrenko (Forschungszentrum Jülich)05/10/2026, 20:40Poster only
Bacterial antiphage defenses, including CRISPR-Cas, are commonly classified according to their evolutionary relationships, presence of known functional domains, or genomic neighborhood. Yet, as viral predation drives rapid diversification, incomplete sequence sampling and fragmented knowledge of bacterial immunity often undermine our ability to reliably predict defense functions. For example,...
Go to contribution page -
Lydia Garrido García-Dorado (LIT Regensburg)05/10/2026, 20:41Poster only
RNAylation is a novel discovered post-translational modification catalyzed by the bacteriophage T4 ADP-ribosyltransferase ModB in which NAD-capped RNAs are covalently attached to host ribosomal proteins. These ribosomal proteins play central roles in translation initiation and elongation. While RNAylation has been shown to occur during bacteriophage T4 infection, its impact on the...
Go to contribution page -
Kathrin Froschauer (Institute of Science and Technology Austria)05/10/2026, 20:42Poster only
Bacteria fight in an ongoing arms race against selfish mobile genetic elements, such as plasmids or phages, which drives the evolution of different defense systems against those invaders. Recently, a plethora of new defense systems have been identified and characterized, most of them protecting against phages. While plasmids can be of advantage for the bacteria by allowing adaptations to...
Go to contribution page -
Anne Kupczok (Wageningen University)05/10/2026, 20:43Poster only
Bacteriophages are not only the most ubiquitous biological entity on earth, they also display remarkable genetic diversity across and within populations. While macrodiversity has been extensively studied, the drivers of microdiversity (intra-species genetic diversity) remain poorly understood, particularly in relation to phage lifestyle. The distinguishing ability of temperate phages to...
Go to contribution page -
Clara Rolland (Leibniz Institute DSMZ-German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures GmbH, Braunschweig)05/10/2026, 20:44Poster only
The Z-project of the DFG Priority Programme SPP 2330 provides standardized methodologies and infrastructure for bacteriophage research, including isolation, characterization, host-range determination, and infection kinetics. Collaborative projects with SPP partners aim to expand phage diversity by isolating novel bacteriophages from diverse bacterial hosts. These efforts resulted in the...
Go to contribution page -
Gideon Cummings (Weizmann Institute of Science)05/10/2026, 20:45Poster only
Death domains are central scaffolds of innate immune signaling in animals, where upon pathogen recognition they rapidly nucleate higher-order signalosomes that control inflammatory responses and programmed cell death. Homologous domains were recently identified in putative bacterial defense systems, where they occur in combination with diverse cell death effectors in a mix-and-match...
Go to contribution page -
Rodrigo Sanchez Martinez (Chair of Intestinal Microbiome, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany)05/10/2026, 20:46Poster only
Phages play a crucial role in maintaining gut microbiome homeostasis by regulating bacterial populations and modulating host metabolic and immune functions. Despite the remarkable stability of both bacterial and phage communities in the intestine, the mechanisms enabling their long-term coexistence remain poorly understood. This study aimed to identify the key ecological and molecular factors...
Go to contribution page -
Maximilian Feussner (University of Leipzig)05/10/2026, 20:47Poster only
Bacteriophages are relentless innovators in the molecular arms race with bacteria. To evade adaptive immune systems like CRISPR-Cas—which utilize RNA-guided nucleases to cleave viral genomes—phages have evolved a vast array of counter-defences. However, despite this evolutionary creativity, the known anti-CRISPR (acr) repertoire remains almost exclusively composed of proteins. Here, we uncover...
Go to contribution page -
Luis Rivera-Montero (Faculty of Biology, Microbiology, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität)05/10/2026, 20:48Poster only
The epitranscriptome is the collection of all chemical modifications in RNA molecules. Changes in the epitranscriptome alter the structure and functionality of RNAs, and thereby influence biological processes. The contribution of epitranscriptomic regulation to host–virus interactions in prokaryotes is poorly understood. To shed light on these effects, we performed time-resolved dual profiling...
Go to contribution page -
Patrick Pausch (Vilnius University)05/10/2026, 20:49Poster only
DRTs are widespread anti-phage defense systems, yet the molecular mechanisms underlying their activation remain poorly understood. Here, we investigate the mechanism of the type 4 defense-associated reverse transcriptase (DRT4), a member of the UG/Abi class 1 systems. Screening against the BASEL bacteriophage collection revealed that DRT4 provides broad protection against diverse phage...
Go to contribution page -
Tal Livny (Weizmann Institute of Science)05/10/2026, 20:50Poster only
Gasdermins are pore-forming proteins that mediate programmed cell death in both eukaryotes and bacteria. In animals, pathogen-induced activation of gasdermins not only eliminates infected cells but also promotes the release of inflammatory signaling molecules that coordinate immune responses. In bacteria, gasdermins have recently been identified as anti-phage defense systems that abort...
Go to contribution page -
Ms Aatreyi Roy (Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI), Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), Würzburg, Germany)05/10/2026, 20:51Poster only
RNA viruses have compact genomes that require them to hijack host factors for successful replication. This is also true for RNA phages with single-stranded genomes, for which it is well established that they co-opt various host factors involved in translation to facilitate their infection cycles. By contrast, host factors co-opted by cystoviruses, i.e., RNA phages with tri-segmented...
Go to contribution page -
Manuel Velasco Gomariz (HIRI-Würzburg)05/10/2026, 20:52Poster only
Regulation of gene expression is a key aspect of phage biology. DNA phages primarily rely on transcriptional regulatory mechanisms to modulate protein output both temporally and quantitatively. By contrast, phages with RNA genomes do not undergo a DNA stage during replication and therefore must rely on post-transcriptional regulation. These circuits, however, remain largely unexplored,...
Go to contribution page -
Ms Swati Sharma (IBG-1 and IBG-2)05/10/2026, 20:53Poster only
In the search for sustainable agricultural practices, bacteriophages have emerged as promising modulators of plant–microbe interactions and biocontrol agents against bacterial plant pathogens. Phages are very host specific viruses of individual bacterial species, and as such can lead to targeted decrease of a known bacterial population.
Go to contribution page
Our initial work investigated the tripartite interaction... -
Dorian Fischer (Justus-Liebig-University)05/10/2026, 20:54Poster only
Inoviruses are widely occurring filamentous phages; the best-known members are the Ff phages, including F1, Fd, and M13, which have been studied extensively to investigate fundamental aspects of molecular biology. Outside the Ff group, however, knowledge of Inovirus infection and egress mechanisms remains scarce.
Go to contribution page
We recently isolated a novel phage, Shewanella phage Dolos, belonging to the... -
Junchao Cheng05/10/2026, 20:55Poster only
Successful bacteriophage infection requires temporal regulations of both host and viral transcriptional machineries. To proceed through its infection cycle, crAss-like phage phi14:2 employs a virion encapsidated RNA polymerase (vRNAP) for its early genes and re-directs the host RNAP for the middle and probably late genes. The vRNAP is an evolutionarily divergent single-subunit RNAP that does...
Go to contribution page -
Daniel Gohlus05/10/2026, 20:56Poster only
Phages are parasites that depend on their bacterial hosts for replication. Interestingly, these parasites can be hijacked by mobile genetic elements known as phage satellites. Phage satellites require the presence of a helper phage for lateral gene transfer.
Go to contribution page
Here, we present a Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 plasmid, named pDolos, which functions as a phage satellite for the inovirus Dolos. pDolos... -
Dr Shazeb Ahmad (Institute of Molecular Infection Biology (IMIB), University of Würzburg)05/10/2026, 20:57Poster only
Bacterial communities organized in biofilms exhibit distinct immune properties that enhance resistance against bacteriophage predation. Key players in the bacterial immune response are antiphage defense systems that restrict phage replication. However, the regulation and function of these defense systems within biofilms remain poorly understood, as most studies rely on liquid cultures that do...
Go to contribution page -
Bhavna Menon (Research group Bacteriophages, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Munich, Germany)05/10/2026, 20:58Poster only
Group 1 jumbo phages, despite infecting diverse bacterial hosts, are unified by their multisubunit RNA polymerases (RNAPs): the virion RNA polymerase (vRNAP) and the non-virion RNA polymerase (nvRNAP). These polymerases are homologous to bacterial RNAP. Although the nvRNAP promoter recognition mechanism has been characterized, that of the vRNAP remains unknown.
Go to contribution page
Here we report the first... -
Belinda Loh05/10/2026, 20:59Poster only
Tailocins are phage tail-like bacteriocins produced by bacteria to kill closely related strains and represent an evolutionarily repurposed mechanism of interbacterial competition. In Pseudomonas aeruginosa, these structures, termed pyocins, comprise morphologically distinct R- and F-type particles. While their bactericidal activity is well established, the dynamics of bacterial populations...
Go to contribution page -
Fatoumata Sow (Complexes in Phage-infected Cells (CPIC), Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Brunswick, Germany)05/10/2026, 21:00Poster only
Bacteria employ a variety of strategies to defend themselves against bacteriophage infections. Bypassing these strategies is crucial for determining the fate of the bacteriophage replication and efficiency in therapeutic setups. Through co-fractionation in gradients, we identified the ΦKZ-encoded factor ΦKZ014 as a novel interaction partner with the protein production machinery [1]. This...
Go to contribution page -
Shirin Aminian (Department of Medicine, MSB Medical School Berlin, Berlin, Germany)05/10/2026, 21:01Poster only
Bacterial outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) influence phage-host interactions by acting as decoys that adsorb bacteriophages and reduce the number of infectious particles. This study investigates the molecular and biophysical mechanisms underlying OMV formation in Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium during bacteriophage infection.
The podovirus P22 is used as a model phage to examine the...
Go to contribution page -
Karina Krammer (Max-von-Pettenkofer-Institut, LMU Medizin, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)05/10/2026, 21:02Poster only
Prophages are widespread in nature. If their costs outweigh their benefits, they are rapidly lost from bacterial populations in vitro [1]. However, the long-term persistence and co-evolutionary trajectories of functional prophages within a bacterial host inside natural microbial communities remain poorly understood.
To answer these questions, we conducted a longitudinal cohort study over 18...
Go to contribution page -
Milena Dziomba (Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research)05/10/2026, 21:03Poster only
Until recently, phages were classified according to a binary system that distinguished clearly between lytic and lysogenic life cycles, either actively lysing the host cell or with the potential to integrate as prophages into the bacterial genome. However, recent studies challenge this dichotomy, suggesting that virulent phages with a strictly lytic lifecycle may maintain a permanent infection...
Go to contribution page -
Nina Bäuerle (RPTU)05/10/2026, 21:04Poster only
Some viruses infecting cyanobacteria carry auxiliary metabolic genes (AMGs) acquired from their hosts via horizontal gene transfer. They are thought to alter or supplement host metabolism, although their activity in the virocell during infection was not shown yet. Some AMGs in cyanophages (phages that infect cyanobacteria) exhibit notable similarities to host genes that function in the...
Go to contribution page -
Antonia Nowicki (MSB Medical School Berlin)05/10/2026, 21:05Poster only
Biofilms are a widespread microbial lifestyle in which cells are embedded in a self-produced extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) matrix composed of DNA, proteins, and glycans. In plant pathogens such as Erwinia spp., highly viscous, anionic polysaccharides dominate the EPS and act as effective diffusion barriers to bacteriophages, thereby influencing infection processes.
Go to contribution page
We investigated... -
Hannah-Maria Monks (MSB Medicalschool Berlin)05/10/2026, 21:06Poster only
Bacteria employ diverse defence mechanisms against bacteriophage infection, including the release of bacterial extracellular vesicles (BEVs). Gram-negative bacteria produce outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) composed of outer membrane lipids and proteins, including surface receptors such as the O-antigen of lipopolysaccharide (LPS). This study focuses on the interaction between Salmonella...
Go to contribution page -
Patricia Blum (Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Institute of Bio- and Geosciences, IBG-1: Biotechnology, Jülich, Germany; Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Faculty of Mathematical and Natural Sciences, Institute of Microbial Interactions, Düsseldorf, Germany)05/10/2026, 21:07Poster only
Viruses infecting bacteria, so-called bacteriophages (phages for short) account for the most abundant biological entity on the planet and pose a constant threat for bacteria. Due to that omnipresent evolutionary pressure, bacteria evolved complex “immune systems” with a great diversity of antiviral defense mechanisms, such as abortive infection (Abi), restriction modification (RM) systems or...
Go to contribution page -
Dr Inga Songailiene (University of Copenhagen)05/10/2026, 21:08Poster only
crRNA-guided effector complexes (ECs) of CRISPR–Cas systems mediate the cleavage or silencing of invading phage genetic material. Class 1 CRISPR–Cas systems, which rely on multiprotein effector assemblies, are the most abundant CRISPR systems in nature [1] and have been widely adapted for biotechnological applications, including genome engineering and transcriptional silencing [2]. In type I...
Go to contribution page -
Anna Penzkofer (Max-von-Pettenkofer-Institut, LMU Medizin, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)05/10/2026, 21:09Poster only
Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) arise from complex interactions between host genetics, immune dysregulation, and the gut microbiome. Sulfate-reducing bacteria, particularly the Desulfovibrionaceae family, are opportunistic pathobionts that are enriched in patients with IBD and contribute to epithelial damage by producing hydrogen sulfide and other metabolites. Like most gut microbes, these...
Go to contribution page -
Chloé Feltin (Université Paris-Saclay, INRAE, AgroParisTech, MICALIS)05/10/2026, 21:10Poster only
The gut microbiome is vital for human health. While most studies focus on bacteria, roles of gut phages remain poorly understood. Our team aim to decipher how phage-bacteria interactions are shaped by diet and antibiotics, strong modulators of gut bacterial composition. To achieve this, we integrate metagenomics with longitudinal samples of in-vitro gut models and clinical...
Go to contribution page -
KARINA ILCHENKO (Université Paris-Saclay, INRAE, AgroParisTech, MICALIS, France)05/10/2026, 21:11Poster only
Phage-plasmids (P-Ps) are temperate phages that replicate as plasmids during lysogeny while producing infectious virions upon induction. They are widespread and often carry important accessory functions, including virulence factors and antibiotic resistance genes. However, existing computational some tools define them often either as phages or plasmids, limiting our understanding of their...
Go to contribution page -
Claudia Campobasso (LIT - Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy)05/10/2026, 21:12Poster only
Phage P2 is a temperate bacteriophage infecting Escherichia coli and the helper phage of the satellite phage P4. Despite decades of research, several highly conserved P2 genes remain uncharacterized. Among these, orf30 is constitutively expressed, has its own promoter, and is highly conserved among P2-like phages, yet its biological role has remained unknown. This study aimed to generate, for...
Go to contribution page -
Ariel Morales Araujo (Max von Pettenkofer Instititue - LMU)05/10/2026, 21:13Poster only
Temperate phages use a bistable genetic switch to balance two different modes of transmission: lytic replication leads to horizontal transmission whereas lysogenic persistence allows vertical transmission. Dynamics of this switch are increasingly recognized as an evolvable trait shaped by the architecture of the underlying regulatory network, but the extent to which differences in its genetic...
Go to contribution page -
Mr Artem Isaev (Center for Molecular and Cellular Biology, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Moscow, Russia), Olha Dorozh (Center for Molecular and Cellular Biology, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Moscow, Russia)05/10/2026, 21:14Poster only
Temperate bacteriophages can benefit by protecting their hosts against other phages. The P2-like group of phages encodes a diversity of compact immunity modules. We reveal that the Fun/Z defense system of prophage P2 is related to ORC/Cdc6 domains involved in archaeal and eukaryotic DNA replication. In contrast to related STAND immunity ATPases, Fun/Z lacks predicted sensor or effector domains...
Go to contribution page -
Anton Derzhaev (Center for Bio- and Medical Technologies, Moscow, Russia)05/10/2026, 21:15Poster only
Bacterial abortive infection (Abi) systems typically require multi-component complexes to detect phages and execute cell death. We characterize Tin, a 253-amino-acid protein encoded by prophage P2, as one of the smallest known Abi proteins that mediate phage sensing and abortive response. We demonstrate that Tin protects against T4-like phages by directly recognizing the phage SSB protein...
Go to contribution page -
Lavisha Parab (Ludwig Maximilians Universität (LMU) Munich)05/10/2026, 21:16Poster only
Infection by temperate phages leads bacteria down different evolutionary routes, each with specific fitness trade-offs. Lysogeny provides immunity against similar phages through superinfection exclusion but comes with costs such as genomic maintenance of the prophage and risk of future cell lysis. In contrast, lytic activity favours surface receptor modifications that confer phage resistance...
Go to contribution page -
Wendy LE MOUELLIC05/10/2026, 21:17Poster only
Just as eukaryotic cells activate multiple immune pathways to counter viral infection, bacteria employ diverse strategies to resist bacteriophage attack. For a long time, restriction-modification and CRISPR-Cas systems were the main antiphage systems described in bacteria. As these are absent from Eukaryotes, bacterial and eukaryotic immunities have historically remained two distinct fields of...
Go to contribution page -
Markosovo Marjaya (Robert Koch Institut)05/10/2026, 21:18Poster only
Legionella pneumophila, an intracellular pathogen of human lungs and environmental protozoa, possesses a diverse array of virulence factors shaped by its niche. One such factor, the highly active phospholipase A PlaB, localizes to the bacterial outer membrane and contributes to virulence in host cells. Here, we propose an additional function for PlaB as an intrinsic cell death effector...
Go to contribution page -
Balwina Koopal (Institute of Science and Technology Austria)05/10/2026, 21:19Poster only
Argonautes are nucleic acid-guided proteins that use short oligonucleotides to recognize complementary nucleic acids. In eukaryotes, they mediate RNA interference, whereas the more diverse prokaryotic Argonautes (pAgos) protect their hosts against invading nucleic acids by either directly neutralizing the invader or triggering programmed cell death. Initially, research on pAgos focused on a...
Go to contribution page -
Dr Shafagh Moradian (Institute of Molecular Infection Biology (IMIB), University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany)05/10/2026, 21:20Poster only
Early during infection of the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, the jumbo bacteriophage PhiKZ forms a membrane-bound Early Phage Infection (EPI) compartment. This compartment spatially separates early viral transcription from the bacterial cytoplasm, while translation remains dependent on host ribosomes outside the EPI. How newly synthesised viral mRNA molecules are exported...
Go to contribution page -
Sofia Mortensen (DESY)05/10/2026, 21:21Poster only
Deoxynucleotides are emerging as important mediators of bacterial genotoxic stress response and bacteria–phage interactions. Recent studies suggest that single-stranded DNA, particularly deoxydinucleotides, may function as signaling molecules that activate bacterial defense systems. These discoveries include our identification of a novel family of DEDD nucleases, termed deoxydinucleases...
Go to contribution page -
Finn Lobnow (Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology)05/10/2026, 21:22Poster only
Accurate cell signaling requires information to be moved through a cascade of signaling effectors in a directional and controlled manner. Death domains orchestrate metazoan signalosome formation through ordered, often heterotypic assembly.
Go to contribution page
However, whether these assembly rules are universal has remained unclear. The recent discovery of bacterial death domain homologs provides a valuable... -
Samy Mechrouki (Institute of Bio- and Geosciences, IBG1, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany)05/10/2026, 21:23Poster only
Prophages are ubiquitous elements of bacterial genomes (1). As major contributors to bacterial genetic diversity, prophages can impact host fitness and confer new phenotypes as they often encode defense systems or virulence factors (2). Intriguingly, many bacteria harbor multiple prophages – so-called polylysogens – making them valuable models to study phage-host and phage-phage...
Go to contribution page -
Thea Brunsch05/10/2026, 21:25Poster only
Bacteriophages are among the fastest-evolving biological entities, yet the early dynamics and constraints of their adaptive trajectories remain incompletely understood. This PhD project will investigate long-term phage adaptation in a controlled experimental evolution system using a Pseudomonas strain and its lytic phage, with automated serial passage enabling standardized propagation across...
Go to contribution page -
Lasse Hallenga (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)05/10/2026, 21:26Poster only
Bacteria encode diverse anti-phage defense systems, yet how their components are spatially organized during infection remains poorly understood. Three-dimensional multichannel fluorescence microscopy can resolve the spatial relationship between phages and fluorescently labelled defense components. However, this information is often lost during analysis when z-stacks are collapsed into...
Go to contribution page -
Paritosh Bedekar (University of Exeter)05/10/2026, 21:27Poster only
Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT) is a key element of bacterial adaptation and evolution, enabling the acquisition of genes that influence critical traits, such as antibiotic resistance. HGT is mediated by Mobile Genetic Elements (MGEs) like plasmids, transposons and bacteriophages. While MGEs can be beneficial, some, such as bacteriophages, are harmful, prompting bacteria to evolve diverse...
Go to contribution page -
Moses Kabuu (Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH and Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf)05/10/2026, 21:28Poster only
Bacteriophages predation exerts strong selective pressure on bacteria, driving the evolution of diverse antiphage defense systems. While most characterized defense systems act intracellularly post-infection1, its critical to explore defense strategies that function prior to infection considering, that phage-host interactions occur within complex natural environments. Such pre-infection...
Go to contribution page -
Ms Neysa Rodriguez-Murillo (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)05/10/2026, 21:29Poster only
Staphylococci - among them the important human pathogen S. aureus - represent key constituents of the nasal and skin microbiome (1). Temperate bacteriophages are major drivers of staphylococcal evolution, leading to the spread of virulence factors and resistance genes (2,3). The effects of lysogeny on the fitness of Staphylococcal species have not been explored in a systematic manner,...
Go to contribution page -
Thomas Gaudin (HIRI)05/10/2026, 21:30Poster only
Mobile genetic elements and their bacterial hosts are in a never-ending evolution dance, giving rise to a multitude of defense and evasion systems. For one given defense system, it is possible to find multiple escape effector encoded by the bacteriophages, blocking, hiding or mimicking a crucial element for an efficient immune response. Some of those effectors can even block multiple defense...
Go to contribution page -
Caroline Jelen (Universität Freiburg)05/10/2026, 21:31Poster only
The marine cyanobacterium Synechococcus WH8109 is a globally widespread and ecologically important model organism that contributes significantly to primary production in ocean environments, making it a valuable system for studying cyanobacterial ecology and virus–host interactions. Its cyanophage, Syn9, is a T4-like virus that infects Synechococcus and is used to study the molecular...
Go to contribution page -
Tim Hoff (Institute of General Microbiology, Kiel University)05/10/2026, 21:32Poster only
Archaeal viruses remain among the most enigmatic and least explored components of microbiology. In recent years, several novel archaeal viruses have been isolated and characterized, revealing remarkable diversity not only in morphology but also in genome architecture (Prangishvili et al., 2017) . One such example is the Methanosarcina spherical virus (MetSV), a lytic member of the Tectiviridae...
Go to contribution page -
Alina Kemmler (Institute for Microbiology and Molecular Biology, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Germany)05/10/2026, 21:33Poster only
ADP-ribosyl-transferases (ARTs) are versatile enzymes found across prokaryotes, eukaryotes, and viruses. Genomic analyses have shown that ARTs are also widespread among bacteriophages. However, their functions in phage infection remain poorly understood. These enzymes modify host proteins through ADP-ribosylation or RNAylation, particularly targeting proteins involved in transcription and...
Go to contribution page -
Gisela T. Rodríguez-Sánchez (Balance of the Microverse, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena)05/10/2026, 21:34Poster only
Phages are abundant in natural microbial communities, yet their full role in shaping community evolution, diversity, function, and dynamics remains unresolved. A particularly case is their potential to influence multistate microbial communities—communities that assemble in alternative stable states under identical conditions. Recent evidence suggests that exposure of microbial communities to...
Go to contribution page -
Florian Sigloch (PolyQuant GmbH)05/10/2026, 21:35Poster only
Objective
Both the Eu. Ph. Chapter 5.13 and the EMA concept paper on manufacturing of phage products demand controlling host-cell derived impurities, e.g. host-cell proteins (HCPs), endo- and exotoxins, as well as prophages. Here, we present a universal method for HCP control of phage products by LC-MS/MS.Methods
Go to contribution page
E. coli phage T7 was spiked with EcoCAT protein standards and measured via... -
Nicole Rutbeek (University of Copenhagen)05/10/2026, 21:36Poster only
Bacteria have evolved a number of diverse strategies to evade and resist phage infection, however the detailed mechanisms for many of these remain to be understood. In particular, fewer membrane associated anti-phage defence systems have been described in detail, especially ones functioning through a non-abortive mechanism. Here we investigate a two-protein defence system where one protein is...
Go to contribution page -
Ms Migle Sarpilo (University of Copenhagen, Taylor Lab)05/10/2026, 21:37Poster only
Escherichia coli siphophage Bas24 is a previously uncharacterized bacteriophage belonging to the subfamily Queuovirinae. To determine its structure and describe its main structural features, the Bas24 virion was analysed using single-particle cryo–electron microscopy (cryo-EM). The virion structure and morphology were resolved, with the prolate capsid reconstructed to 3.07 Å resolution. The...
Go to contribution page -
James Hodgkinson-Bean (Department of Drug Design and Pharmacology, University of Copenhagen)05/10/2026, 21:38Poster only
Bacteriophages of the class Caudoviricetes infect bacterial hosts through deployment of specialized tail machinery capable of adsorption and penetration of host bacterial cell walls. The mechanism of adsorption and penetration has been studied extensively using model Enterobacteriaceae phages such as T4, T7, P22, P1 and . These model phages adsorb initially to the bacterial cell wall, binding...
Go to contribution page -
Marta Siborova (ILF, University of Copenhagen)05/10/2026, 21:39Poster only
Ubiquitination is a central regulatory mechanism in eukaryotic cell biology, governing processes ranging from protein turnover to antiviral defence. In bacteria, conjugation of ubiquitin-like proteins (Ubls) is emerging as a core function of diverse antiviral systems, including systems with evolutionary links to the human antiviral ISG15 pathway. Recent work has uncovered a diverged bacterial...
Go to contribution page -
Iana Fedorova (HZI)05/10/2026, 21:40Cellular organisation and regulation of the viral infection cyclePoster only
Signaling-based anti-bacteriophage systems such as CBASS and Thoeris synthesize infection-triggered nucleotide signals that activate anti-phage effectors. However, the phage features sensed by these systems and the mechanisms phages use to evade signaling immunity remain poorly understood. Here, studying clinically relevant N4-like Pseudomonas aeruginosa phages from the Migulavirinae family,...
Go to contribution page -
Miguel Fernandez (RPTU)05/10/2026, 21:41Poster only
Auxiliary Metabolic Genes (AMGs) are found in the genomes of many phages that infect cyanobacteria. While their activities in the virocell during infection still need to be elucidated, it is thought that they are involved in reprogramming the host
Go to contribution page
metabolism rather than directly affecting viral replication.
AMGs often encode proteins involved in photosynthesis and light-harvesting and seem... -
Biel Badia Roigé (IBG1)05/10/2026, 21:42Poster only
In Actinomycetota, Lsr2-like xenogeneic silencer proteins are widespread nucleoid-associated proteins that preferentially bind AT-rich foreign sequences, oligomerize across promoters and intergenic regions, and hinder transcription. While they function as a global regulator for virulence genes or biofilm promoting genes has been described in the past, its role durin bacteriophage infection,...
Go to contribution page -
Adhvaidhi Kuntran (Humboldt University Berlin)05/10/2026, 21:44Novel anti-viral defence systemsPoster only
The Zorya defence system is a multi-protein antiviral complex that detects phage infection at the bacterial membrane and restricts viral replication. Although the three Zorya subtypes share homologous membrane-spanning components, they encode distinct cytoplasmic effector proteins, suggesting mechanistic divergence between subtypes.
Go to contribution page
Here, we investigate the anti-phage defence profile of Zorya... -
Thomson Hallmark (Wageningen University & Research)05/10/2026, 21:45Novel anti-viral defence systemsPoster only
Organisms from all domains of life are under constant attack from selfish genetic elements including viruses, plasmids, and transposons. To defend against these invaders, a myriad of immune systems has evolved. Argonautes (Agos) are a heavily diversified family of immune proteins that are conserved from prokaryotes to eukaryotes. In general, Agos use small nucleic acid guides to recognize...
Go to contribution page -
Tjark Schneider (Infection Biology; Interfaculty Institute of Microbiology and Infection Medicine Tübingen (IMIT); University of Tübingen)Cellular organisation and regulation of the viral infection cyclePoster only
Phages are major vehicles for horizontal gene transfer in the human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus and promising agents for the treatment of antibiotic resistant infections. All currently known Staphylococcus phages use wall teichoic acid (WTA), a bacterial cell wall glycopolymer, as their receptor, such that loss of WTA can lead to phage escape. We found that Silviavirus Remus can bind...
Go to contribution page
Choose timezone
Your profile timezone:
