Dr Radu Zabet

Flyer for symposium: https://ctrlepiedit.sciencesconf.org/

Very excited to announce the FIRST symposium on epigenome editing! These tools are becoming widely used in mol bio, ag & therapy. It's time to bring leaders together to discuss this rapidly growing and exciting field. And why not in Paris! Please register & share! (1/2) ctrlepiedit.sciencesconf.org

Abstract submission for the Mol Hem Workshop is now open here ehaweb.org/connect-netw...
Submit for your chance to present your latest unpublished work in a highly visible session that forms part of the EHA annual meeting program in Stockholm.

Thank you Duncan!

Finally, this cohort is representative for British population and there is no specific bias in ageing or diseases condition (e.g., cancer). Also this is the largest cohort using the EPIC array that is representative (without any design bias, e.g., aging or disease)

Approximately 800 sites that show very strong variability in DNA methylation (which we call epialleles) with a site being lowly methylated in approximately half of the population and highly methylated in the other half. These regions have a strong link with gene expression and regulation.

We find that:
- at least half of epigenetic differences are under genetic control
- approximately a quarter are linked to sex and age
- 15% are linked to cell type composition
- 10% we could not assign to any of these categories (so some of these might be under environmental or life style control).

These sites are partially methylated and found in regulatory regions (enhancers & intergenic) and are enriched in binding motifs for specific TFs that have been shown to display DNA methylation sensitive binding. This indicates that they may be functional in controlling gene regulation.

Here, we looked at DNA methylation data from whole blood (EPIC array ~850K CpGs) in approximately 3.5K individuals from Understanding Society, the largest longitudinal and latitudinal British Household study and found ~35K CpGs that display high interindividual variability in DNA methylation.

Systematic investigation of interindividual variation of DNA methylation in human whole blood - Genome Biology Background Interindividual genetic variability is well characterised, but we still lack a complete catalogue of loci displaying variable and stable epigenetic patterns. Results Here, we report a catal...

Excited to share our latest publication on interindividual variation of DNA methylation in human whole blood, spearheaded by the amazing Olivia Grant and co-led with @leo-schalkwyk.bsky.social and Meena Kumari.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Join @berasymbionts.bsky.social , @tatsuyanobori.bsky.social and us for a postdoc on the remarkable developmental biology of symbiosis!

Applications are due March 25th 🪲🦠

@johninnescentre.bsky.social @thesainsburylab.bsky.social

Figure showing 3 panels,(A) a picture of annelid Capitella teleta on black background, (B) a cladogram with major biological model organisms showing the phylogenetic position of C. teleta and (C) schematics of the 10 chromosomes of C. teleta

New from @chemamd.bsky.social lab @qmulsbbs.bsky.social Collab with Elaine Seaver, @baxevanislab.bsky.social @neva-meyer.bsky.social @abhinavsur.bsky.social

New chromosome-level assembly for Capitella teleta 🪱

academic.oup.com/gbe/advance-...

#DevBio
#WormWednesday
@genomebiolevol.bsky.social

Transposable elements are increasingly studied in single-cell data, but how reliable are current locus-level quantification methods in short-read scRNA-seq data?

If you work with single-cell RNA-seq or TEs, we hope this is a useful resource — feedback very welcome!

A plant histone H3.3-specific amino acid safeguards the deposition of H3K36 methylation for proper development and stress responses Plant histone variant H3.3 uniquely carries T31 rather than the S31 found in animals. Li et al. demonstrate that T31 prevents plant-specific ATXR5/6-mediated H3K27me1 deposition, which would otherwise...

A plant #histone H3.3-specific #amino acid safeguards the deposition of H3K36 #methylation for proper #development and #stress responses

www.cell.com/developmenta...

#PlantScience #SciComm @cp-devcell.bsky.social @epigeneticspod.bsky.social @epigenometech.bsky.social @histone3.bsky.social

We are one of the potential host labs for a Lecturer position in Molecular Genetics & Genomics — please share, and get in touch for more info! 🧬📣

🚨3-year Postdoc Position @halloulab.bsky.social (Kennedy Institute, Oxford) - on Spatial Biology & Bioinformatics of Fibrosis🚨

An exciting project combining #SpatialTranscriptomics & #Mechanobiology👇:

shorturl.at/LLS5r

Deadline: 16 March - Please RT 📢!

@kiroxford.bsky.social @ox.ac.uk

March 4th is world obesity day. Obesity is a chronic relapsing disease and is not a choice. #obesityisnotachoice

Giant DNA viruses encode a hallmark translation initiation complex of eukaryotic life Giant DNA viruses encode a cap-binding complex homologous to eIF4F, the defining translation-initiation complex of eukaryotes. The viral cap-binding complex is required for viral protein synthesis and...

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Decoding the molecular logic of rapidly evolving ZAD zinc finger proteins in Drosophila Identification of ZAD-ZnF genes as key regulators of genome organization during Drosophila embryogenesis.

Diving into evolutionary biology! What is the origin of the most abundant class of insect transcription factors, ZAD-ZnFs? We suggest that they evolved from ancestral insulator-binding proteins that control 3D genome topology.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Domain-adaptation deep learning models do not outperform simple baseline models in single-cell anti-cancer drug sensitivity prediction #SingleCell 🧪🧬🖥️
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.24.707713v1

We are excited to be recruiting a new tenure track group leader in the Structural Studies Division at MRC LMB! It is an amazing place to start your own lab.
@mrclmb.bsky.social

Please get in touch if you have any questions.
www.nature.com/naturecareer...

'We show that histone butyrylation on H3K27 is detected in human colon samples. Furthermore, histone acetylation, butyrylation, and propionylation on H3K9 and H3K27 are responsive to levels of SCFAs in human colon cancer cell lines and are associated with active gene regulatory elements.'
#preprint

Nutrient competition predicts gut microbiome restructuring under drug perturbations Systematic profiling of 707 drugs on their impact on stool-derived microbial communities shows that nutrient competition explains and predicts species shifts under drug treatment and that post-drug re...

Fascinating discovery by team @stanfordbiosci.bsky.social

www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

Nuclear speckles enable processing of RNA from GC-rich isochores Nuclear speckles are key subnuclear structures that regulate gene expression in GC-rich regions. This work shows that the evolution and expansion of core speckle proteins were crucial for the increase...

The function of nuclear speckles is revealed! This is an incredibly important paper with absolutely beautiful data! Wow! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Image

Karolinska Institute is hiring for 7 new positions!

Individual job details below!👇

#ScienceJobs

Job opening for Research Group Leader in Structural Studies at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, focusing on macromolecular structures.

Are you a structural biologist pushing the boundaries of molecular science with an ambitious research programme?
Join our Structural Studies Division as a tenure-track Group Leader, with core funding, world-leading facilities & enthusiastic colleagues.
Apply by 16 MAR
www.nature.com/naturecareer...

Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres - Nature Evolutionarily related ‘proto-point’ centromeres providing resolution to the evolutionary origins of point centromeres are identified in yeast, and comparison shows they evolved in an ancestor with re...

Our paper is now out in Nature:

“Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres”

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A short thread on how retrotransposons helped give rise to yeast point centromeres.

1/14

Regulatory Features and Functional Specialization of Human Endogenous Retroviral LTRs: A Genome-Wide Annotation and Analysis via HERVarium https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.17.706328v1

Thank you Duncan! And I must highlight that while the suggested changes by reviewers took us some time to do, they improved significantly the manuscript and strengthen the conclusions so we were really happy with the process.

Previous studies reported a correlation between presence of gBM and gene expression noise. Here, we used a series of epigenetic mutants in plants together with epigenetic recombinant inbred lines and showed that loss of CpG methylation in gBM leads to increase in noise in gene expression. 3/3

gBM is present in many organisms (humans, animals and plants) and while DNA methylation is often associated with transcription silencing, gBM has been found at a subset of highly expressed genes. This raised the question of why some expressed genes have gene body methylation and others don't. 2/3