π₯Fantastic paper!π₯
TE with a role in vegetative phase change and gametogenesis, mediated by 24-nt siRNAs acting in trans to a wide range of genes. Found by GWAS in A. thaliana π±. Congratulations to the authors! ππ»ππ»ππ»
#epigenetics #plantscience
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Join us at the EMBO Workshop βRNA-guided genome protectionβ π¨π June 16β20. Transposon silencing β’ stem cell biology β’ RNA-guided immunity. Keynotes: DΓ©borah Bourcβhis + Ian MacRae. Register now + submit your abstract! meetings.embo.org/event/26-gen...
Are you ready for *the* meeting about the evolutionary biology of Caenorhabditis and other nematodes??
EvoWorm 2026 will be held at McMaster University from June 16β19
Abstract submission deadline: April 15
Registration deadline: June 1
Further details can be found at evoworm.org
So excited to share this manuscript led by the inimitable Cara Brand, who discovered that Topoisomerase II evolution causes hybrid female lethality in Drosophila.
Congrats to Cara, @nickbr0wn.bsky.social, Anirban, and
@buszczaklab.bsky.social!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Read how @embopress.org is expanding its focus on molecular ecology and evolution as central underpinnings of functions/interactions/diversification of biological systems β by @yehumoran.bsky.social, @berndpulverer.bsky.social, and our new team of Editorial Advisors
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Our paper is now out in Nature:
βAncient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeresβ
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A short thread on how retrotransposons helped give rise to yeast point centromeres.
1/14
How does the piRNA pathway solve the self vs. non-self problem? π§¬
Since piRNAs come from single-stranded RNA, how does the cell choose the right ones? For years, "piRNA clusters" were seen as THE privileged source. But are they really special and earmarked for biogenesis? (1/19)
Congrats to talented graduate student Aaron Lemus for leading this litterature review on #transposons and #epigenetic remodeling with #aging! @uscleonarddavis.bsky.social
New preprint from the lab! We dig into the regulatory roles of TEs in the mouse placenta, with some surprising findings. Led by the awesome @smamante.bsky.social. Particular kudos to him for navigating the many twists and turns of the project.
Today, we're sharing an open letter from our Chief Executive, Professor Sir Ian Chapman, outlining changes to UKRI investment approach, and addressing concerns about research funding and the financial position of STFC. Read his letter here: www.ukri.org/news/open-le...
Huge congratulations to @juancruedas.bsky.social for successfully passing his PhD viva with minor corrections yesterday! π§¬Weβre incredibly proud of you! And even more exciting, the manuscript is on the way. Stay tuned! ππ₯³
@cambiochem.bsky.social
One protein. One pathway. A whole germline fate.
New paper from my postdoc @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social out in PNAS:
Germline fate determination by a single ARGONAUTE protein in Ectocarpus www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
It is finally out! If you are interested in TE-derived CREs, and newly described, but evolutionary old KZFP-TE mechanistic modalities, read it at www.cell.com/cell-reports....
Thankful to everyone who took part in this work, namely @orpsf.bsky.social and other @trono-lab.bsky.social members. π«π§¬β¨
Crushed to hear of Mark Batzerβs passing. He was the Boyd Professor at Louisiana State University. His influential research revealed how mobile elements shape the genomes of humans & other mammals. Markβs personality, generosity & positivity were larger than life. He lifted everyone up. HUGE loss π
We had a great time at the @cambiochem.bsky.social Away Days, learning about the exciting research across the Department! It was a pleasure to share some of our groupβs projects thanks to @migueldvalmeida.bsky.social and @ecwalsh.bsky.social . All set for a year full of science! Stay tuned!
Interested in the unexpected? How about a link between piRNAs and maternal histone mRNAs β¦ Great collab with @sebastianfalk.bsky.social, @koenig-lab.bsky.social and Florian Steiner.
#piRNA #histone #mRNA #maternal #RNAbiology #RNASky
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
New Year, New Paper!π
Pervasive cis-regulatory co-option of a transposable element family reinforces cell identity across the mouse immune system
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Centerpiece of Jason Chobirko's PhD, talented PhD student co-mentored by Andrew Grimson & me. Really excited about it!π§΅
Need a bit of escapism? Not exactly Lord of the Rings, but in similar vein:
doi.org/10.1038/s443...
Very happy to see this preprint out! π This was the last project I started during my time in the Ketting lab, which was later picked up by Shamitha, who did an amazing job extending our initial observations on C. elegans GTSF-1 to other nematodes + further insights into RdRP interaction.
Happy to share two BioRxiv manuscripts from our lab. One on genetic Argonaute interaction and unexpected non-correlation between small RNAs and their targets:
doi.org/10.64898/202...
The second on IDR processing and IDR-mediated Argonaute loading control:
doi.org/10.64898/202...
Merry Xmasπ
βEarl Grey v7.0.0 brewed freshβ
Nested TEs finally get the treatment they deserve: iterative detection of deep nesting, cleaner GFF annotations, and coverage stats that donβt double-count genomic space + a RepeatCraft edge-case fix.
Happy new year to the TE folks! π§¬
github.com/TobyBaril/Ea...
Intrigued by a long-standing conundrum in small RNA biologyβhow nuclear Argonaute proteins silence transposons when they *need* target transcription for their own recruitmentβwe studied the piRNA pathway.
And found a hidden RNA-decay axis from Piwi to the RNA exosome.
Congrats! Very well deserved! π
Very happy to share that I have been awarded an ERC CoG to build predictive and mechanistic models of pigment pattern development and evolution across cichlids!! π π¨ I've been dreaming about this for a long time, and Iβm incredibly excited that we can now pursue it in full. #ERCCoG @erc.europa.eu 1/3
WormTagDB: A Systematic Survey of Endogenously Tagged Proteins in C. elegans and Roadmap Towards the Tagged Proteome https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.02.691955v1
High-quality mouse reference genomes [PacBio Long Read genomes of 17 strains] reveal the structural complexity of the murine protein-coding landscape, Cell Genomics. www.cell.com/cell-genomic... Genomes and annotations here: projects.ensembl.org/mouse_genomes/
Rapid compensatory evolution within a multiprotein complex preserves telomere integrity www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @levine-lab.bsky.social very cool work
Caenorhabditis elegans, imaged with confocal laser scanning microscopy, and modeled by surface rendering software. Stock image.
All hail Caenorhabditis elegans, one of the most researched organisms on Earth. Collaborative data sharing in the nematode research community led to four Nobel Prize-winning discoveries about human development and disease. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/uNqU50Xyj4e
Happy to share that my PhD project is finally published!πͺ±β¨
Selfish genes are found across the tree of life. They can disrupt inheritance patterns and at the same time act as units for molecular innovation. Here we tried to answer one big question: how do selfish genes emerge in the first place?
Roussel, Suh, @fjruizruano.bsky.social & @amdioncote.bsky.social characterized TE content in naturally occurring killifish hybrids, finding higher TE load and accumulation of Neptune subfamilies in hybrids.
π doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf266
#evobio #molbio #TEsky
