🩸🩸🩸TODAY WE SHARE TWO MAJOR DISCOVERIES🩸🩸🩸 1. We peered into genomes and brains of the rare mosquitoes that QUIT feeding on blood and found what biting is built from 2. Humans got rid of isoleucine in their blood, malaria suffers from it, and mosquito proteomes budget for it THREADS>

I am so excited to see this preprint out. I started working on springtails with @laurarossevo.bsky.social in 2019, but this pinnacle of our efforts manifested only with heroric leadership of Sam Ebdon! So, what's the deal? 👇

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology@biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · last wk.

Stronger positive and purifying selection on X-linked genes in a species with paternal genome elimination https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.14.751372v1

Thrilled to see this published today! Truly special because we made the initial discovery >15 yrs ago! We found two copies of a human gene called BC200 embedded in a human poxvirus. BC200 blurs the line between gene & transposon—both functional & mutagenic! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧵1/n

Escape of the BC200 gene to a human poxvirus reveals its persistent transposition in primates

Transposable elements mobilize within and occasionally between genomes, including from host to virus. We identified two insertions of the human BC200 noncoding RNA gene in the poxvirus molluscum conta...

science.org

Incredibly cool new transposon biology!

Maya Voichek@mayavoichek.bsky.social · 2d ago

Super excited to share my postdoctoral work at @imbavienna.bsky.social @viennabiocenter.bsky.social - We discovered that some retrotransposons, or "jumping genes" 🧬, are able to spread from cell to cell via a new viral infectivity route. A short thread: 🧵👇 (1/7)

Tyrannosaurus xkcd.com/3300/

We are recruiting a PhD student 🥼🙋 Topic: how germ cells bend gene expression dogmas Fly genetics + proteomics + genomics. Fully funded. Aarhus University 🇩🇰 info on the project and how to apply👇 mbg.au.dk/en/peter-and... I'd really appreciate it if you'd help spread the word. Thanks

Excited that our new paper with @henrylabsymbio.bsky.social and Kerry Oliver is out @pnas.org! We show that mobile genetic elements can spread adaptive host-benefiting traits across heritable insect symbionts on eco-evolutionary timescales.🧵 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Phenotypic divergence is driven by mobile genetic elements in a heritable insect symbiont | PNAS

Heritable microbes profoundly influence insect biology, yet the traits they confer often evolve rapidly and differ among closely related symbiont s...

pnas.org

The heatwave is finally over - just in time for our “Frosty Foci” to finally come online! ❄️🦠 We found that E. coli builds a transient nucleolus-like ribosome biogenesis compartment during cold adaptation, when RNA (mis)folding makes ribosome biogenesis challenging.

Out today in Nature: sex without crossovers. Rhynchospora tenuis makes pollen, fertilises and sets seed, yet 0 crossovers in 10,997 pollen nuclei. Chromosome drive and ~87% seed abortion rebuild the mother's genotype, so the offspring are clones. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

André Marques@amarques.bsky.social · 8mo ago

A new extreme of meiotic evolution: ✔️ 𝗻𝗼 crossovers ✔️ 𝗻𝗼 gene conversion ✔️ 𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹 meiosis & fertility Sex mimics clonality without becoming asexual, in the holocentric multicellular eukaryote 𝘙𝘩𝘺𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢 𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘶𝘪𝘴. more about it: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I'm happy to share my new paper "A new conceptual framework for host-microbe symbiosis" If you've seen me give a talk in the last 5 years, then you've seen me talk about this. It's been a journey. academic.oup.com/ismehm/artic... #MicroSky #MicrobiomeSky

A new conceptual framework for host-microbe symbiosis

Abstract. Host-microbe relationships are studied across biological disciplines, with unique but overlapping conceptual frameworks arising from each of them

academic.oup.com

Very happy to announce that @emboreports.org will be sponsoring a cash prize for the best poster at Ctrl+Epi+Edit ✒️🧬! Still time to register and submit an abstract (speaking slots still open also), but it's filling up, so act fast! Thanks for the support 🙏 ctrlepiedit.sciencesconf.org

How does linear motifs drive dephosphorylation - and does it matter where and how strong the motifs are? These are the question Evi answers in her brand new pre-print: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

One of the coolest projects I've seen over the last few years. If you have a chance to invite @florianmayer.bsky.social for a talk, you definitely should! You'd be in for a treat.

Florian Mayer@florianmayer.bsky.social · 2w ago

Excited to share our preprint on Ignicoccus cell divison: only the inner membrane divides, progeny cells accumulate in cell clusters and pop-out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Great work with the labs: @buzzbaum.bsky.social @curiousdina.bsky.social @anja1.bsky.social @tbharat-lab.bsky.social

Pathway to Independence - an interview with Maëlle Bellec #Drosophila

Very proud of the team, led by @baukjeje.bsky.social & @fmikus.bsky.social To all of you doing #Expansion #Microscopy #UExM Try Concanavalin A. Its cheap, easy to use & labels the #nuclear #Envelope @moorefound.bsky.social @embl.org @sciencesunige.bsky.social @erc.europa.eu @snsf.ch

Baukje Hoogenberg@baukjeje.bsky.social · 2w ago

Do you want to label the nuclear envelope? Do you work on a non-model species? Try Concanavalin A! We tested ConA on various species across the eukaryotic tree and find it is a very useful ExM-compatible marker for the NE and ER. Read all about it in our preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New preprint from our group (led solely by our student Vladimir Dmitriev): a valency-bounding correction (VBC) for coarse-grained MD. It lets you cap how many neighbours a particle can bind, without introducing explicit patches or fixed bond directions. arxiv.org/abs/2609.07842 1/

Valency-bounding correction potential for coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations

Many systems in soft and living matter bind through a limited number of bonds per particle: proteins associate via discrete surface patches, nucleic acids form one-to-one contacts, and the phase behav...

arxiv.org

My lab @ Edinburgh university is recruiting a postdoc to work on the weird and wonderful germline-specific chromosomes of flies. elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid... collaboration with @germline.bsky.social and yukiko yamashita funded by @novonordisk.bsky.social please repost!

super proud - my very first review is online www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... many thanks to @signor-molevol.bsky.social @rpianezza.bsky.social @almoroscarpa.bsky.social for the fun collaboration

The History of Transposable Element Invasions in Drosophila melanogaster

As a fundamental biological principle, genomic information is typically transmitted vertically from parent to offspring. Occasionally, however, genetic material is transferred horizontally between spe...

annualreviews.org

Hello World ! Reminder about our open postdoc position 🧪🧬 Reviewing applications until October - get in touch to know more about what's hot in the lab these days ! Application details in the post below 👇👇 #EvoEpi #MolaroLab #watwat #ERC

Antoine Molaro@antoinemolaro.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Hello World ! We have another postdoc position open in the lab! Are you a freshly minted Ph.D. with a passion for chromatin and evolution ? Come join our ERC project #EvoEpi ! Inclusive environment + cool people + great science = success details 👉 tinyurl.com/3r6zk54n Repost are always appreciated

Ever wondered why diverse organism shrink their genome in specific cells? We try to make sense of these curious cases of programmed DNA elimination in a review that came out today @naturerevgenet.bsky.social trebuchet.public.springernature.app/get_content/... @sandraduharcourt.bsky.social

Very excited to share our new preprint: “A pseudohelicase-centered complex couples assembly-dependent RNA cleavage to poly(UG)ylation”! 🎉 Want to know more? 🧵👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Very happy to see our Nature Reviews Genetics article on programmed DNA elimination across eukaryotes out! A fantastic collective effort with an amazing group of colleagues, born from inspiring discussions at the Fondation des Treilles. rdcu.be/tmvKgsPZNhBa @laurarossevo.bsky.social

Nature Reviews Genetics@natrevgenet.nature.com · 2w ago

New online! The mechanistic and evolutionary diversity of programmed DNA elimination

We are recruiting a PhD student 🥼🙋 Topic: how germ cells bend gene expression dogmas Fly genetics + proteomics + genomics. Fully funded. Aarhus University 🇩🇰 info on the project and how to apply👇 mbg.au.dk/en/peter-and... I'd really appreciate it if you'd help spread the word. Thanks

Applications for the IMPRS Bio-MAP PhD program now open! 🎉 dipp.cmcb.tu-dresden.de/ausschreibun...

2. call for a postdoc position with Torben Heick Jensen, Aarhus University, Denmark. Get in touch for further information or simply apply using this link: www.au.dk/om/stillinge...

Postdoc position in Nuclear RNA Biology - Ledig stilling på Aarhus Universitet

Ledig stilling ved Institut for Molekylærbiologi og Genetik - RNA-biologi og -innovation, Aarhus Universitet

au.dk

1/ out in @science.org! We found a new asymmetry in large-scale chromosome structure: sister chromatids are shifted by hundreds of kb in the 5′→3′ direction of their inherited strands! A close collaboration w/ @gerlichlab.bsky.social , led by @flaviacorsi.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Happy to share PhD work of @shamithagovind.bsky.social She unraveled how GTSF1, a protein known from the Piwi field, regulates RdRP in nematodes. Thanks also to @psarkies.bsky.social @sebastianfalk.bsky.social Ralf Sommer, Falk Butter, @migueldvalmeida.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

An evolutionarily conserved N-terminal domain of RRF-3 governs GTSF-1 binding in nematodes - EMBO Reports

GTSF1 is an essential activating cofactor for PIWI proteins in many metazoans. In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, however, GTSF-1 does not bind PIWI, but is associated with the RNA-dependent RNA ...

link.springer.com

Crazy/incredible "Here we show that bacterial ribosomes can synthesize proteins encoded within their own RNA. We engineered a chimeric messenger–ribosomal RNA (mrRNA) by appending a protein-coding sequence to 16S rRNA. " www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Rewiring the ribosome to translate proteins encoded in its own RNA - Nature

Bacterial ribosomes can synthesize proteins encoded within their own RNA.

nature.com

Finally - the 🧵! So, the piRNA pathway defends the animal germline from transposons. But most of what we know comes from narrow developmental windows like late oogenesis, where it's easiest to study. We asked if the pathway is the same across development. It is not! /+

Peter Andersen@germline.bsky.social · 4w ago

We watched piRNAs and transposons across development, saw them dance tightly and wrote a paper about it. It's so cool to see it online and we will make a thread about it all very soon. Stay tuned :-)

🪰 A new study in #GENETICS demonstrates how the Stellate meiotic drive system in #Drosophila is active in contemporary populations, revealing its evolutionary significance. 🔗 buff.ly/UqEQJrQ