Ferhat Ay

@ferhatay.bsky.social

Dad x 2, husband, son, brother, computational biologist, genome scientist, associate professor at la jolla institute for immunology (LJI) and UCSD https://www.lji.org/labs/ay/

To accommodate decision timelines from RECOMB main conference and ISMB, we have now extended the submission deadline with RECOMB-RSG to March 13th, there will be no more extensions. Looking forward to have you join us in Greece! recomb-rsg.github.io

RECOMB-RSG 2026 | Regulatory Genomics Satellite

recomb-rsg.github.io

SSushmita Roy@sroyyors.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Thanks to @ferhatay.bsky.social and Aly Khan, we’re excited to announce a new chapter for RECOMB-RSG 2026. After years with ISCB/DREAM, we are transitioning to an official RECOMB satellite meeting (May 25 in Thessaloniki). recomb-rsg.github.io

Analysis of the evolution of this gene architecture and the presence of GC-rich isochores revealed that these features are specific to amniotes. By using the pA-RNA signal as a proxy for speckles we show the speckles are present in amniotes and absent in fish and invertebrates.

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The short & GC-rich introns emerged in amniotes and were once long and GC-poor (in fish). The emergence of this gene architecture coincides with the expansion of SON’s IDRs. IDRs of SON are necessary and sufficient to form functional speckles.

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Problems in splicing, due to SF3 complex dispersal, cause changes in gene expression, but only a small set of exons-introns are sensitive to speckles loss. These genes have introns with short & GC-rich architecture and are found in GC-rich isochores.

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Differential gene expression analysis upon speckles loss reveals only genes within high GC chromatin domains are susceptible. The distance of the chromosomes 18 (lowest GC content) and 19 (highest GC content) from the speckles also indicate their speckle dependency.

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Speckles take a large space in the human cell nucleus and form viscoelastic boundaries that restrict random chromatin movements. Upon speckles loss, the chromatin mobility increases and active(A) and inactive(B) chromatin compartments mix as shown by the Pore-C analysis by @ferhatay.bsky.social lab

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Nuclear speckles are protein and RNA rich condensates that are proximal to GC-rich regions of the human genome. We dissolved speckles by rapidly depleting the 2 core proteins; SON & SRRM2 and investigated the role of speckles in: 1. 3D genome folding 2. transcription & splicing.

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10th year anniversary of Ay lab at LJI! What a journey so far! Thank you to all lab members, collaborators, LJI family, who made this enjoyable and exciting. Here is a photo that summarizes how my lab sees me now 😂😂😢😢

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Happy to see this out @insight.jci.org The first paper of hopefully many with Reid Oldenburg, Croker lab and others at UCSD utilizing BD Rhapsody platform for single-cell profiling of patient samples for severe conditions such as RIME.

Waggoner Lab@labwaggoner.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Dual dysregulation of TNF/interferon signaling and classical monocytes are implicated in Reactive Infectious Mucocutaneous Eruptions @insight.jci.org @ucsandiego.bsky.social @ferhatay.bsky.social insight.jci.org/articles/vie...

Our latest paper on comparative analysis of HiChIP data is now online! HiChIP is one of the most useful/practical assays to profile 3D genome organization and chromatin loops but has its challenges in the data analysis especially when it comes to comparative analysis.

I have NIGMS R35, impact score 12 NIHGRI R21, 4th percentile NHGRI R01, 7th percentile (co-I) and it seems like none will be funded. 0/3. PO (who has been very helpful) said "Unfortunately, I do not expect this application will be selected for funding in FY25." 😭

Using ISMB 2025 as an opportunity, I like to announce three papers that came out from our lab in the past month in Bioinformatics, EMBO Journal and Genome Biology. Two of these will be talks at RegSys COSI today (Laura Hinojosa, short talk) and tomorrow (Dante Bolzan, Proceedings talk).

After a long trip and a long sleep, i am ready to enjoy the rich scientific program at #ISMBECCB2025 in Liverpool. This is also the first year of our new COSI in Computational and System Immunology (CSI) happening on Tuesday. And of course looking forward RegSys, as usual with fantastic organizers