Coe, A., Parker, S. M., Vo, N. N., Kearney, S. M., Pollak, S., von Emster, K., Mullet, J. I., Castro, K. G. & Chisholm, S. W.

Influence of heterotrophs on phage infection of marine picocyanobacteria

mSystems. 2026 Jul.

Yu, X. A., Strachan, C. R., Herbold, C. W., Lang, M., Gasche, C., Makristathis, A., Segata, N., Pollak, S., Tett, A. & Polz, M. F.

Genome-wide sweeps create ecological units in the human gut microbiome

Nature. 2026 May.

Seki, D., Pollak, S., Kujawska, M., Kiu, R., Acuna-Gonzalez, A., Crouch, L. I., Bakshani, C. R., Chivers, P. T., Mommers, M., Van Best, N., Penders, J. & Hall, L. J.

Human milk oligosaccharide mediates mutualism between escherichia coli and bifidobacterium bifidum.

Nature Communications. 2026 Apr.

2025

Chen, S.-C., Li, X.-M., Battisti, N., Guan, G., Montoya, M. A., Osvatic, J., Pjevac, P., Pollak, S., Richter, A., Schintlmeister, A., Wanek, W., Mussmann, M. & Loy, A.

Microbial iron oxide respiration coupled to sulfide oxidation.

Nature. 2025 Aug.

2024

Becker, J. W., Pollak, S., Berta-Thompson, J. W., Becker, K. W., Braakman, R., Dooley, K. D., Hackl, T., Coe, A., Arellano, A., LeGault, K. N., Berube, P. M., Biller, S. J., Cubillos-Ruiz, A., Van Mooy, B. A. S. & Chisholm, S. W.

Novel isolates expand the physiological diversity of Prochlorococcus and illuminate its macroevolution

Mbio. 2024 Nov.

Guseva, K., Mohrlok, M., Alteio, L., Schmidt, H., Pollak, S. & Kaiser, C.

Bacteria face trade-offs in the decomposition of complex biopolymers

PLOS Computational Biology. 2024 Aug.

Shan, X., Wasson, P. A., Rao, Y., Backer, S., Leal, L., Albright, V. C., Gao, W., Chai, Y., Sichert, A., Pollak, S., Yin, L. & Cordero, O. X.

Simple genomic traits predict rates of polysaccharide biodegradation

Environmental Science & Technology. 2024 Jul.

2018-2023

Bareia, T., Pollak, S., Guler, P., Puyesky, S. & Eldar, A.

Major distinctions between the two oligopeptide permease systems of Bacillus subtilis with respect to signaling, development and evolutionary divergence.

Microbiology. 2023 Sep.

Gralka, M., Pollak, S. & Cordero, O. X.

Genome content predicts the carbon catabolic preferences of heterotrophic bacteria.

Nature Microbiology. 2023 Aug.

Pollak, S.

Plant DNA in feces as a nutritional crystal ball.

PNAS. 2023 Jul.

Szabo, R. E., Pontrelli, S., Grilli, J., Schwartzman, J. A., Pollak, S., Sauer, U. & Cordero, O. X.

Historical contingencies and phage induction diversify bacterioplankton communities at the microscale.

PNAS. 2022 Jul.

Pontrelli, S., Szabo, R., Pollak, S., Schwartzman, J., Ledezma-Tejeida, D., Cordero, O. X. & Sauer, U.

Metabolic cross-feeding structures the assembly of polysaccharide degrading communities.

Science Advances. 2022 Feb.

Pollak, S., Gralka, M., Sato, Y., Schwartzman, J., Lu, L. & Cordero, O. X.

Public good exploitation in natural bacterioplankton communities.

Science Advances. 2021 Jul.

Liao, J., Guo, X., Weller, D. L., Pollak, S., Buckley, D. H., Wiedmann, M. & Cordero, O. X.

Nationwide genomic atlas of soil-dwelling Listeria reveals effects of selection and population ecology on pangenome evolution.

Nature Microbiology. 2021 Jul.

Pollak, S. & Cordero, O. X.

Rhizobiome shields plants from infection. (commentary)

Nature Microbiology 2020 Aug.

Ben-Zion, I., Pollak, S. & Eldar, A.

Clonality and non-linearity drive facultative-cooperation allele diversity.

The ISME journal. 2019 Mar.

Bareia T., Pollak, S., Eldar A.

Self-sensing in Bacillus subtilis quorum-sensing systems.

Nature Microbiology. 2018 Jan.

Before 2018

Even-Tov, E., Omer Bendori, S., Pollak, S. & Eldar, A.

Transient Duplication-Dependent Divergence and Horizontal Transfer Underlie the Evolutionary Dynamics of Bacterial Cell-Cell Signaling.

PLoS Biol. 2016 Dec.

Even-Tov, E., Omer Bendori, S., Valastyan, J., Ke, X., Pollak, S., Bareia, T., Ben-Zion, I., Bassler, B. L. & Eldar, A.

Social Evolution Selects for Redundancy in Bacterial Quorum Sensing.

PLoS Biol. 2016 Feb.

Pollak, S., Omer-Bendori, S., Even-Tov, E., Lipsman, V., Bareia, T., Ben-Zion, I. & Eldar, A.

Facultative cheating supports the coexistence of diverse quorum-sensing alleles.

PNAS. 2016 Feb 23;113(8):2152-7.

Commentary by Pérez-Escudero A., Gore J.

Selection favors incompatible signaling in bacteria.

PNAS 2016 Feb.

Pollak, S., Omer Bendori, S. & Eldar, A.

A complex path for domestication of B. subtilis sociality.

Current Genetics. 2015 Nov.

Omer Bendori, S., Pollak, S., Hizi, D. & Eldar, A.

The RapP-PhrP quoru sensing system of Bacillus subtilis strain NCIB3610 affect biofilm formation through multiple targets, due to an atypical signal-insensitive allele of RapP.

J Bacteriol. 2014 Nov.

Halimi, Y., Dessau, M., Pollak, S., Ast, T., Erez, T., Livnat-Levanon, N., Karniol, B., Hirsch, J. A. & Chamovitz, D. A.

COP9 signalosome subunit 7 from Arabidopsis interacts with and regulates the small subunit of ribonucleotide reductase (RNR2).

Plant Mol Biol. 2011 Sep.

Preprints

Sichert, A., Pollak, S., Goyal, A., Cordero, O. & Sauer, U.

A division of labor controls the degradation of fucoidans in the ocean.

bioRxiv. 2025 Aug.

Lopatina, A., Ferenc, M., Bartlau, N., Wolfram, M., Steensen, K., Muscia, S., Hussain, F., Schnurer, M., Afjehi-Sadat, L., Pollak, S. & Polz, M. F.

Interpretable machine learning reveals a diverse arsenal of anti-defenses in bacterial viruses.

bioRxiv. 2024 Jun.