Egill Richard

This study shows that temperate phages enhance bacterial fitness by remodeling flagella via RNA-guided transcription factors, improving motility and immune evasion.

The paper identifies TnpB-like nuclease-dead repressors (TldR) as RNA-guided transcription factors that emerged through domestication of transposon-encoded TnpB nucleases, pre-dating CRISPR-Cas systems.

The paper investigates how inverted sedentary chromosomal integrons (SCIs) in Vibrio cholerae recover their original orientation through homologous recombination, maintaining cassette stability and bacterial fitness.

The paper shows toxin-antitoxin systems regulate cassette recombination dynamics in chromosomal integrons by killing cells when excision rates are too high.

The paper demonstrates that integron integrase can insert cassettes outside classical att sites, leading to new recombination sites called attG and expanding integron roles in bacterial evolution.

The paper investigates cassette recruitment in the chromosomal integron of Vibrio cholerae during conjugation and natural transformation, showing that horizontally transferred cassettes can be inserted and expressed.