New preprint from Dodonova lab 🔔! Capturing multiple states by cryo-EM❄️, we show for the first time how archaeal RNA Polymerase engages a nucleosome and forms direct contacts with histones! 🧬 Great work by Gabriele & a fantastic collaboration with Dina Grohmann! 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New preprint: in the last bit of my graduate work in the @voslab.org, we describe the mechanism for how BRD4 engages with P-TEFb in the context of regulating early RNA Pol II elongation. Read more here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Structural basis for P-TEFb association with BRD4

Cyclin-dependent kinases (CDK) dynamically regulate RNA Polymerase (Pol) II during each stage of transcription. Phosphorylation of RNA Pol II and associated transcription factors by CDKs enables stage...

biorxiv.org

⚡Preprint alert⚡ So proud of @amohamed98.bsky.social! Abdallah determined the cryo-EM structure of BRD4 bound to the kinase P-TEFb, defining the molecular basis of this key transcription interaction — and revealing that BRD4 and AFF4 binding are mutually exclusive to P-TEFb. Lots more inside 👇

Abdallah Mohamed@amohamed98.bsky.social · 4w ago

New preprint: in the last bit of my graduate work in the @voslab.org, we describe the mechanism for how BRD4 engages with P-TEFb in the context of regulating early RNA Pol II elongation. Read more here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

See you on Wednesday!!

FragileNucleosome@fnucleosome.bsky.social · last mo.

🎤 #FragileNucleosome is back next Wednesday! Hope you enjoyed the summer!Join us next 📅Wednesday to hear about 🧬fascinating research from @mpalamin.bsky.social from Krebs lab and @robertovn.bsky.social from Vos lab. To register if you haven't before: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

🎤 #FragileNucleosome is back next Wednesday! Hope you enjoyed the summer!Join us next 📅Wednesday to hear about 🧬fascinating research from @mpalamin.bsky.social from Krebs lab and @robertovn.bsky.social from Vos lab. To register if you haven't before: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

🧵 We’re excited to share our new bioRxiv preprint on how INO80 reads promoter-proximal DNA sequence features to position +1 nucleosomes 🧬 Amazing work by Mariia, Annika, and others! 🤩 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #ChromatinBiology #StructuralBiology #Nucleosome #INO80

Happy to share the first paper from my postdoc in the Darst and Campbell labs! 🧵 www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.... We used cryo-EM and allosteric inhibitors as mechanistic probes to visualize conformational landscapes of E. coli and M. tuberculosis RNA polymerases during nucleotide addition. 1/4

RNA polymerase inhibitors reveal active-site motions essential for the nucleotide addition cycle | PNAS

The nucleotide addition cycle (NAC) of multisubunit DNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RNAPs) involves coordinated conformational changes in conserved ...

pnas.org

The OMB’s proposals will give the president shocking control over who can get scientific funding and what it can be used for. We need to flood the comment section before July 13th. Read more and submit your comment here: elkodaily.com/news/local/c... www.regulations.gov/commenton/OM...

The Kaplan Lab at the University of Pittsburgh has received funds to recruit a postdoctoral fellow to establish a multiplexed assay of variant effect for a disease gene. This relates to our studies on RNA Polymerase II. This project requires experience with human cell lines and genomics 1/

We just started our summer break, but we're also planning our September-December seminar schedule! If you have an exciting chromatin/transcription story that will be ready for the spotlight by then, use the survey below to nominate yourself to give a #FNucleosome talk 🧬🧬 forms.gle/1EKYN2Nt79ar...

Application to speak in the Fragile Nucleosome series

Thank you for your interest in our seminar series! We use a variety of different session formats but, in general, trainees can plan for a ~15 min talk + 5min Q/A and PIs can plan for a ~25min talk +...

forms.gle

Glad to have presented my postdoctoral work from the @voslab.org lab in the last machines on genes conference. Thank you to the organizers and to the @biochemsoc.bsky.social for the opportunity and for bringing us to beautiful Crete. #Biochemevents

Help please! We need to do some large(ish) cell culture inhibiting E-cadherin with a monoclonal antibody. Does anyone have the DECMA-1 hybridoma cell line so we could purify our own antibody? or a similar monoclonal that would do the job. Any help greatly appreciated, just DM me. Please repost!

🚨 New preprint: GATO-seq did it again! ELOF1 is the missing promoter-proximal factor that confers RNA Pol II resistance to TFIIF. Including ELOF1, DSIF, and NELF in GATO-seq reactions recapitulates promoter-proximal pausing in vitro at physiological conditions for the 1st time. tinyurl.com/ELOF1

It's long overdue, but I'm back to writing about science, starting with how science gets funded (aka grants). "Fun" fact: even before current cuts to science funding, less than 1% of the federal budget went to science grants. elkodaily.com/news/local/a...

Cell-free genomics reveals fundamental regulatory principles of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis transcription cycle

Cell-free genomics reveals fundamental regulatory principles of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis transcription cycle

Froom et al. address a central challenge in gene regulation: untangling direct effects from indirect cellular network effects. They introduce cell-free genomics, a genome-scale biochemical approach that isolates direct transcription mechanisms. Applied to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, it reveals fundamental principles of transcription initiation and termination with broad relevance.

dlvr.it

🚨New preprint! We built a cell-free genomics platform (GATO-seq) to probe transcriptional regulation and discovered a “super pause” sequence that triggers a new Pol II active-site conformation. Huge shout-out to @robertovn.bsky.social for pulling off this monster of a project. tinyurl.com/superpause

Preprint alert 🚨Happy to share my first Posdoc manuscript from the Vos lab @voslab.org. We introduce GATO-seq, a high-throughput, fully in vitro technique that maps RNA polymerases at base pair resolution over time. Using it, we found a new pause state of Pol II: sidetracking tinyurl.com/superpause

How do SMC complexes load onto DNA to get ready for loop extrusion? @roisnehamelinf.bsky.social & co discovered that Wadjet, an SMC complex involved in bacterial DNA immunity, performs some impressive molecular gymnastics 🤸‍♂️🤸‍♂️🤸‍♂️. Check out the new paper: www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

🧬 Ever wonder how metres of #DNA 🧬 fit into a single cell? @gruberlab.bsky.social, working at @unil.bsky.social uncovered how protein machines fold DNA into loops – key for cell division & genome stability. Learn more 👉 buff.ly/PrfdXnr #BioTech #Chromosomes #Crystallography #GeneEditing 🧪

Cracking the code of DNA folding machines

New research has helped to explain how DNA is shaped into loops, a process critical for ensuring chromosomes are properly distributed...

europa.eu

We wrapped up our most successful year to date at Symbiotic STEM! Check out what we accomplished at symbioticstem.org 🌱🌱