Publications

In reverse chronological order:

2025

An antimicrobial daptide from human skin commensal Staphylococcus hominis protects against skin pathogens. Nguyen, A., Bunch, Z.L., Martinez-Aldino, I.Y, Rangel-Grimaldo, Tak U, Thorstenson JC, Severn MM, Nakatsuji T, Gallo RL, Graf TN, Oberlies NH, Chekan JR, Cech NB, and Horswill AR. Nature Communications 16, 11459 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-66259-w

The Panoptes system uses decoy cyclic nucleotides to defend against phage. Sullivan AE, Nabhani A, Schinkel K, Dinh DM, Duncan ML, Ednacot EMQ, Hoffman CRK, Izrailevsky DS, Kibby EM, Nagy TA, Nguyen CM, Tak U, Burroughs AM, Aravind L, Whiteley AT, Morehouse BR. Nature 647, 988–996 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09557-z

A minimal CRISPR polymerase produces decoy cyclic nucleotides to detect phage anti-defense proteins. Sullivan AE, Nabhani A, Schinkel K, Dinh DM, Duncan ML, Ednacot EMQ, Hoffman CRK, Izrailevsky DS, Kibby EM, Nagy TA, Nguyen CM, Tak U, Burroughs AM, Aravind L, Whiteley AT, Morehouse BR. bioRxiv. 2025; https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.03.28.64604

2023

Bacteria use 2’,3’-cGAMP to activate an ion channel to restrict phage replication. Tak U, Holguin-Walth P, and Whiteley AT. bioRxiv. 2023;  https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.07.24.550367

2021

Toxin secretion and trafficking by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Pajuelo D, Tak U, Zhang L, Danilchanka O, Tischler AD, Niederweis M. Nature Communications. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26925-1

A type VII secretion system in Group B Streptococcus mediates cytotoxicity and virulence. Spencer BL, Tak U, Mendonça JC, Nagao PE, Niederweis M, Doran KS. PLoS Pathogens. 2021 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010121

Pore-forming Esx proteins mediate toxin secretion by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tak U, Dokland T, Niederweis M. Nature Communications. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20533-1

2019

The tuberculosis necrotizing toxin is an NAD+ and NADP+ glycohydrolase with distinct enzymatic properties. Tak U, Vlach J, Garza-Garcia A, William D, Danilchanka O, de Carvalho LPS, Saad JS, Niederweis M. Journal of Biological Chemistry 2019. doi: 10.1074/jbc.RA118.005832

2018

NAD+ Depletion Triggers Macrophage Necroptosis, a Cell Death Pathway Exploited by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Pajuelo D, Gonzalez-Juarbe N, Tak U, Sun J, Orihuela CJ, Niederweis M. Cell Reports. 2018 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2018.06.042