Max Wilkinson (@maxewilkinson) / X

Max Wilkinson

158 posts

Max Wilkinson

@maxewilkinson

keen on reverse transcription | also keen on spliceosomes | cryoEM dabbler Assistant Member @MSKCC Post-doc @MIT PhD @MRC_LMB BSc @Otago

Manhattan, NY

Joined October 2016

Max Wilkinson
@maxewilkinson
Aug 29, 2024
My favourite discovery ever has just come online. Can I please tell you about some seriously wacky molecular biology? The story starts with a reverse transcriptase that SOMEHOW defends bacteria from viruses. (👇 I recommend sound ON for the video 🎹) 1/
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Max Wilkinson
@maxewilkinson
Apr 6, 2023
How do LINE family retrotransposons jump around? Can we reprogram retrotransposons? What does this have to do with Rum and Raisin? Answers here and below!
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Max Wilkinson
@maxewilkinson
Aug 11, 2022
1/5 My first postdoc paper! We found a new viral defence system in bacteria that looks suspiciously similar to inflammasome and apoptosome proteins from fancy eukaryotes – and indeed it acts as a true pattern-recognition receptor to detect phage proteins science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
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Max Wilkinson
@maxewilkinson
Dec 20, 2019
Have you seen all these recent spliceosome #cryoEM structures and just wished you could see the bigger picture beyond all the snRNPs and RNAs and a million protein names? Check out our review! annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.114… Minimum detail, many pretty pictures, and LOTS of MOVIES
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Max Wilkinson
@maxewilkinson
Oct 31, 2025
The Wilkinson Lab is open for science! @MSKCancerCenter 🧬We'll be finding funky new RNA biology, mainly by looking at reverse transcriptases (i.e. the Best Enzymes In The World)🧬
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Max Wilkinson
@maxewilkinson
Aug 29, 2024
Replying to @maxewilkinson
Lots more in the paper (#cryoEM etc!) doi.org/10.1126/scienc… Big thanks to coauthors @_David_Li @algao8 Rhiannon Macrae and @zhangf Please also check out @shsternberg @stephentang23 related work - we come up with similar models, but it'll be exciting to resolve the differences!
science.org
Phage-triggered reverse transcription assembles a toxic repetitive gene from a noncoding RNA
Reverse transcription has frequently been co-opted for cellular functions and in prokaryotes is associated with protection against viral infection, but the underlying mechanisms of defense are...
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Max Wilkinson
@maxewilkinson
Aug 29, 2024
Replying to @maxewilkinson
(Incidentally, we first named this activity DARCARTs – for Defence-Associated Rolling Circle Amplification by Reverse Transcription – because of the similarity to RCA. Sadly, the journals/reviewers/editors/PIs cut this name but NO ONE can stop me using it here :P) 3/
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Max Wilkinson
@maxewilkinson
Aug 29, 2024
Replying to @maxewilkinson
What does this gene do? It produces a repetitive protein that is super toxic 💀. In fact, the more repetitive it is, the more toxic it is 💀💀💀. It stops bacterial growth, and this probably stops the virus from replicating. The lone cell dies, but the pack survives. 5/
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Max Wilkinson
@maxewilkinson
Feb 17, 2021
I know it's old news in #cryoEM these days, but it's my first time seeing it and it's kind of really really exciting 🤓
Max Wilkinson
@maxewilkinson
Oct 4, 2024
covercovercovercovercovercovercovercovercovercovercover this is terrifically exciting (Also please dw, the central dogma is still very much intact, this is just a bit of a funky spin on it)
Science Magazine
@ScienceMagazine
Oct 3, 2024
The central dogma of molecular biology states that genetic information flows from DNA and RNA to protein, with reverse transcription converting RNA to DNA. In the pursuit of understanding how bacteria defend themselves from viral infection, two groups have found alternative
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Max Wilkinson
@maxewilkinson
Aug 29, 2024
Replying to @maxewilkinson
Why make repetitive DNA? It turns out the juxtaposed repeats reconstitute a perfect promoter and continuous open reading frame (a mildly mind-blowing thing to realise). In other words: the bacterium is physically MAKING A GENE in response to viral infection. 4/
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Max Wilkinson
@maxewilkinson
Aug 29, 2024
Replying to @maxewilkinson
Fellow RNA geeks might see parallels to two eukaryotic systems. 1) Splicing – gene construction from non-contiguous RNA segments. 2) Telomerase – repetitive DNA synthesis from an RNA template. All use, or evolved from, reverse transcriptases. RTs rule! 6/
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Max Wilkinson
@maxewilkinson
Aug 29, 2024
Replying to @maxewilkinson
The system consists of a reverse transcriptase and a beautifully pseudoknotted non-coding RNA. We found that during viral infection, the reverse transcriptase goes rampant and makes REPETITIVE DNA, templated by a middle bit of the non-coding RNA. 2/
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Max Wilkinson
@maxewilkinson
Dec 26, 2020
Apparently all I want for christmas is phage in my E coli, but at least they look realllly pretty. Any #bacteriophage people recognise these guys? (@PeterFineran?)