{"id":43223,"date":"2026-03-27T08:33:51","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T08:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/infection-biology\/?page_id=43223"},"modified":"2026-03-27T08:33:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T08:33:52","slug":"mapping-the-arsenal-of-post-translational-modification-in-bacteriophages","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/infection-biology\/projects\/mapping-the-arsenal-of-post-translational-modification-in-bacteriophages\/","title":{"rendered":"Mapping the arsenal of post-translational modification in bacteriophages"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"vf-grid | vf-grid__col-3\"><div class=\"vf-grid__col--span-2\"><!--[vf\/content]-->\n<div class=\"vf-content\">\n\n<p>Bacteriophages encode a vast repertoire of uncharacterised genes, many of which are likely enzymes that manipulate host bacteria during infection through protein post-translational modifications (PTMs). PTM enzymes such as kinases, glycosyltransferases and ADP-ribosyltransferases are among the most important regulatory tools in biology, yet very few have been identified in phages due to extreme sequence divergence. During my postdoctoral research, I developed a computational pipeline that detects PTM enzyme-encoding genes through structural rather than sequence similarity. Applied to representative phage genomes, this approach predicted several novel kinase families beyond those previously known. In parallel, I have established that glycoproteomics enrichment pipelines can simultaneously capture both glycosylation and ADP-ribosylation from bacterial proteomes. This project will generate two foundational datasets: (1) experimental validation of predicted phage kinases using phosphoproteomics, and (2) a systematic survey of glycosylation and ADP-ribosylation diversity across a large collection of natural bacterial isolates, which encode a wide diversity of internalised phages (prophages). Together, these will produce an integrated map of PTM enzyme activity across phage and bacterial genomes, establishing essential preliminary data for a future independent research programme on how phages weaponise PTMs.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div><!--[vf\/content]-->\n<div class=\"vf-content\">\n\n<figure class=\"vf-figure wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"598\" class=\"vf-figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/infection-biology\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_6633_cropped22-1024x598.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-43195\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/infection-biology\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_6633_cropped22-1024x598.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/infection-biology\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_6633_cropped22-300x175.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/infection-biology\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_6633_cropped22-768x449.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/infection-biology\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_6633_cropped22-1536x897.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/infection-biology\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_6633_cropped22-2048x1196.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":155,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-title-left-aligned.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-43223","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"embl_taxonomy_terms":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/infection-biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/43223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/infection-biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/infection-biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/infection-biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/infection-biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/infection-biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/43223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43225,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/infection-biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/43223\/revisions\/43225"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/infection-biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/infection-biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"embl_taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/infection-biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/embl_taxonomy?post=43223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}