20/ The C. teitelbaumiae strain has accumulated multiple nonsense mutations in CDC10/SEP4, rendering it a pseudogene! This is the septin subunit "missing" in hexamers. Accordingly, the Cdc3/Sep3 homolog, which now must homodimerize in the absence of Sep4, has many changes clustered at that interface

18/ OK, I'll wrap this up with what was to me the most shocking result. My lab has reported on changes in a septin-septin interface that allow some organisms to assemble a hexameric septin complex rather than the octameric one found in budding yeast. That interface seems to be quite thermolabile…

15/ what does that MEAN? I found an online dictionary and “udwis” means grape, but “mas”? I emailed back. Turns out “mas” means “looks like”, which is simply brilliant because it came from grapes & the cells do look kinda like grapes! They accept “udwismasis” as the feminine.

13/ <2 weeks later we connected remotely to the Council meeting already in progress, having sent ahead a slide to present. I gave an overview. To my surprise, they immediately suggested improvements. One Elder said they now spell it "duag", not "doag", while another said "What's our word for grape?"

9/ On Google Maps I found the Babad Do'ag Scenic Overlook a few miles away. According to the Forest Service website, "Babad Do'ag is Tohono O'odham for 'frog mountain.' From the Tucson valley, the Santa Catalinas look like a giant sleeping frog." So we came up with the name Coniochaeta babaddoagense

7/ Alya tested tolerance to various stresses and found some neat results with variation in the sequences and predicted structures of stress-associated proteins and also pathways that make pigments, which can confer resistance to cactus-relevant stresses like UV. One isolate is quite fluorescent!

5/ Alya and I had no genomics experience, but she decided to swab cacti on her hikes and sequence a few yeasts and yeast-like fungi that she found. Alya gave a talk on septin evolution at the 2024 FASEB Small GTPases conference near Tucson and on a hike swabbed a cactus and this nearby wild grape.

3/ Our first paper had just come out about our middle school outreach activity isolating wild yeast (PMID 39570886). When visiting my dad in Texas I’d sampled a prickly pear growing in a forest of oaks and found Saccharomyces paradoxus on the cactus and S. cerevisiae on the oaks. Alya was intrigued…

2/ First author Alya @alyahussain.bsky.social came to the lab a few years into her PhD, with an NMR background. We study septin proteins using mostly in vivo assays in yeast. We came up with a project using in silico structure prediction to see evolution of septin-septin interfaces (PMID 38125875).

Just sent this to ThermoFisher via our local rep. Hope it’s ok to use your words, Magnus! They are spot-on

Noticed a baffling fluorescence microscopy phenomenon for which I *may* have an explanation, would appreciate feedback/ideas. Here's video (taken with my iPhone since I wasn’t expecting this!), details in thread... 1/n

Doing the periodic cleaning of used plasmid miniprep columns and realized in honor of Earth Day it may be worth reminding you molecular biologists: Plasmid miniprep columns can be cleaned and reused essentially indefinitely! Just add 1 M HCl, soak overnight and wash 3x w/ water. Save $ and plastic

I feel you

Very proud of McMurray lab student Alya Hussain for successfully defending her PhD today. It was a privilege to have her in the lab over the last 3 years and we wish her the very best in her next step, a postdoc with @hittingerlab.bsky.social

Forgot my gloves, but brought my sign. Great to see a strong turnout in the freezing weather outside the Colorado Capitol Building to #standupforscience

For the budding yeast folks out there (IYKYK) Now on the lookout for “W303” and “S288C”…😉

The predicted result: addition of 5 amino acids to the end of the tag. Incredibly, this addition would transform the end of the tag into a perfect amphipathic helix!

Happy Fluorescence Friday to you from this budding yeast spore

Crystallographers, please help me understand: The top image shows data from a protein that the authors interpreted as binding to GTP. The bottom image shows data from the same protein in another crystal. Those authors concluded that the bound nucleotide is GDP. 🤷🏽‍♂️