Ivan Erill

Why don't transcription factors exploit inter-nucleotide correlations in binding motifs? Evolution of information encoding strategies on DNA

This study investigates why transcription factors use simple, uncorrelated binding motifs despite potential benefits of correlated ones, finding that simpler strategies are more robust to mutations.

Seven amino acids gate transcriptional activation by a minimal MarA Helix turn-helix DNA-binding domain

The paper shows that a single HTH domain from MarA can bind DNA and activate transcription when properly dimerized, revealing structural insights for synthetic biology applications.

Information Theory of Composite Sequence Motifs: Mutational and Biophysical Determinants of Complex Molecular Recognition

This paper develops a framework to analyze composite sequence motifs by integrating mutational and biophysical factors, showing that information can be encoded through both sequence patterns and spacer distances.

Genomic analysis of Staphylococcus aureus isolates from bacteremia reveals genetic features associated with the COVID-19 pandemic

The paper analyzes S. aureus isolates from bacteremia to identify genetic features linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, finding increased prevalence of certain resistance genes and virulence factors.

Evidence for shared ancestry between Actinobacteria and Firmicutes bacteriophages

The paper investigates the shared ancestry between Actinobacteria and Firmicutes bacteriophages using phylogenetic and genomic analysis of phage genomes.

Crowdsourcing biocuration: the Community Assessment of Community Annotation with Ontologies (CACAO)

The paper describes a crowdsourcing initiative, CACAO, where undergraduates contribute gene function annotations to the Gene Ontology, enhancing coverage and enabling community-driven curation.