Ever wondered why some bacteria have multiple CRISPR-Cas systems? Our new study led by Leah Smith shows how type I CRISPR systems can promote the acquisition and retention of new spacers into a co-occuring type III system. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Type I CRISPR-Cas immunity primes type III spacer acquisition

CRISPR-Cas systems are diverse, with microbes harboring multiple classes and subtypes. Type I DNA-targeting and type III RNA-targeting systems often c…

sciencedirect.com

We finish this manuscript with more questions than we started with... a good sign! 🤓 What are these capsids transporting? Which cells release them?? Where do they go???👾🧑‍🚀 So, stay tuned: even in the tiny fly brain, these mechanisms might reveal how similar processes operate in our own. 🧠✨

a cartoon drawing of a cat flying through space

ALT: a cartoon drawing of a cat flying through space

media.tenor.com

📢 Fresh off the press! Our article on Arc is out in @currentbiology.bsky.social: www.cell.com/current-biol... 🧶 Full thread on our discoveries here: bsky.app/profile/thec...

dArc1 controls sugar reward valuation in Drosophila melanogaster

Bervoets et al. show that the retrotransposon-derived gene dArc1 is expressed in serotonergic neurons of the Drosophila brain. They found that loss of dArc leads to sugar reward overvaluation during l...

cell.com

Sophie Caron@thecaronlab.bsky.social · 2y ago

1/ I cannot think of a better first post in the fresh blue sky to introduce the Caron lab than a thread about 👾Arc👾 and our newest preprint. So, buckle up science butterflies!🦋🧞‍♂️ #neuroscience #Drosophila #ArcGenes #WomenInSTEM

I'm excited to announce our new biorxiv preprint, wherein we investigate the evolution of the weirdest genetic locus I've ever seen! Behold the tgr genes of the social amoeba, which mediate self/non-self discrimination during facultative multicellularity 🐅 🧵 1/ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Hypermutable hotspot enables the rapid evolution of self/non-self recognition genes in Dictyostelium

Cells require highly polymorphic receptors to perform accurate self/non-self recognition. In the amoeba Dicytostelium discoideum, polymorphic TgrB1 & TgrC1 proteins are used to bind sister cells and e...

biorxiv.org

piRNAs are essential for transposon silencing in the animal germline. But how do hosts trap transposon sequences in genomic loci that help establish a piRNA response? Looking at a natural transposon invasion, Baptiste Rafanel and Kirsten Senti made some remarkable observations.

bioRxiv Genetics@biorxiv-genetic.bsky.social · last yr.

Antisense transposon insertions into host genes trigger piRNA mediated immunity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.28.667215v1

I need you, and I can't stress this enough, to read this paper by Margaret Kidwell et al. on horizontal transfer of P elements from mites to flies and back...from *1991*: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Possible Horizontal Transfer of Drosophila Genes by the Mite Proctolaelaps regalis

There is strong inferential evidence for recent horizontal gene transfer of the P (mobile) element to Drosophila melanogaster from a species of the Drosophila willistoni group. One potential vector of...

science.org

First preprint from the Nemudryi Lab! 🍾 In this work, we link antiviral immunity in bacteria and humans by showing that homologs of human Schlafen nucleases protect bacteria from phages. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Bacterial Schlafens mediate anti-phage defense

Human Schlafen proteins restrict viral replication by cleaving tRNA, thereby suppressing protein synthesis. Although the ribonuclease domain of Schlafen proteins is conserved across all domains of lif...

biorxiv.org

#phagesky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Temperate phages enhance host fitness via RNA-guided flagellar remodeling

Bacterial flagella drive motility and chemotaxis while also playing critical roles in host-pathogen interactions, as their oligomeric subunit, flagellin, is specifically recognized by the mammalian im...

biorxiv.org

Our latest paper is out: rdcu.be/ev6Ym — one of my favorite projects. It began about 8 years ago when Nobel laureate Torsten Wiesel asked me: what transcription factors regulate new genes? I had no idea then. Now we have some answers.

Gene regulatory networks and essential transcription factors for de novo-originated genes

Nature Ecology & Evolution - A combination of computational methods applied to single-cell RNA sequencing data and genetic experiments shows that a small number of transcription factors are...

rdcu.be

Pls. share widely Calling all transposon fans & lovers of genetic innovation MOBILE GENOME welcomes you in Heidelberg, Nov. 4–7 2025 → Vibrant & friendly community → Cutting-edge talks from mechanisms to physiology → Plenty of surprises (TEs never stop innovating) submit abstract by July 29

EMBL Events@events.embl.org · last yr.

⏰ Abstract deadline for 'The mobile genome' is 29 July! 👉 https://s.embl.org/mge25-01-bl Join us 4–7 Nov 2025 at EMBL Heidelberg (or online) to explore the impact of TEs across biology. 🧬🔍 ⭐🧑🏼‍🔬 24 talks + 15 flash talks from posters – don't miss out! #EMBOMobileGenome

Connaissez-vous l'histoire des gènes sauteurs ?🧬 Dans cette vidéo, Gaël Cristofari, chercheur ( #UniCA, @cnrs.fr, @inserm.fr) explique de manière claire et illustrée comment ces gènes se déplacent et quel rôle essentiel ils jouent dans notre génétique. ➡️https://youtu.be/twtOhB-TPJk?feature=shared

White Board #1 : L'histoire des gènes sauteurs

YouTube video by Université Côte d'Azur

youtu.be

📢Preprint out! Excited to share my final work from the @soreklab.bsky.social! We mined phage dark matter using structural features shared by anti-defense proteins (viral tools that help phages bypass bacterial immunity) to guide discovery. Found 3 new families targeting immune signaling!

Vertebrate retrotransposons are the future of gene therapy. But how do they insert their genes? 🔥🔥 Thrilled to share our new work now published with Kathy Collins, @nogaleslab.bsky.social @berkeleymcb.bsky.social where we investigate this with #cryoEM & biochemistry in 🧪 and cells! #RNAsky #TEsky

🚨New paper! A prophage-encoded sRNA limits lytic phage infection in adherent-invasive E. coli. Huge thanks to members of the Round Lab, @duerkoplab.bsky.social, Wiedenheft Lab, and phage legend Sherwood Casjens. #microsky 🦠🧫🧪🧬 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

In @elife.bsky.social: Effective population size does not explain long-term variation in genome size and transposable element content in animals doi.org/10.7554/eLif... This is the revised version of our manuscript, which will become the final published version !

New preprint from the Wiedenheft lab! We used #cryoEM to show how a type I-F #CRISPR integrase captures, delivers, and integrates foreign DNA. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

1/10 New pre-print(s) from the Sternberg Lab in collaboration with Leifu Chang's Lab! We uncover the unprecedented molecular mechanism of CRISPR-Cas12f-like proteins, which drive RNA-guided transcription independently of canonical promoter motifs. Full story here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

HMMER is the bedrock of genomic annotation globally, and now its funding is terminated for no reason. @cryptogenomicon.bsky.social is now on bsky:

Sean Eddy@cryptogenomicon.bsky.social · last yr.

NIH funding supporting the HMMER and Infernal software projects has been terminated. NIH states that our work, as well as all other federally funded research at Harvard, is of no benefit to the US.

1/10 Today in @science.org in collaboration with the Liu group we report the development of a laboratory-evolved CRISPR-associated transposase (evoCAST) that supports therapeutically relevant levels of RNA-programmable gene insertion in human cells. drive.google.com/file/d/1I-Ub...

💥🥳 At long last, our latest paper is out! Gag proteins of endogenous retroviruses are required for zebrafish development www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Led heroically by Sylvia Chang & @jonowells.bsky.social A study which has changed the way I think of #transposons! No less! 🧵 1/n

Gag proteins encoded by endogenous retroviruses are required for zebrafish development | PNAS

Transposable elements (TEs) make up the bulk of eukaryotic genomes and examples abound of TE-derived sequences repurposed for organismal function. ...

pnas.org

Barbara McClintock proposed – over 40 years ago – that transposable element activity could be a response to stress, and I think that we are still only beginning to understand how right she was.

I have exhorted others to share positive news even in these uncertain times for US science. I am really excited that @tamanash.bsky.social’s first paper on the remarkable evolutionary gymnastics of dual-host viruses (even in single codons) is now online. Follow along here 🧪🧵

Tamanash Bhattacharya@tamanash.bsky.social · last yr.

Our study exploring the evolutionary mechanism of alphavirus opal codon retention is now online! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Our study exploring the evolutionary mechanism of alphavirus opal codon retention is now online! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A conserved opal termination codon optimizes a temperature-dependent trade-off between protein production and processing in alphaviruses

Alphaviruses optimize viral polymerase production and polyprotein processing at distinct temperatures via a premature stop codon.

science.org

Very excited with @tobybarilbio.bsky.social to share this preprint about his latest work on TEs! We knew that TEs were very pretty active in this global fungal pathogen of wheat. Now with nearly 2000 Illumina genomes available, we could finally ask questions about historic TE activation waves.

Toby Baril@tobybarilbio.bsky.social · last yr.

Excited to share our latest preprint 🥳 Historic transposon mobilisation waves create distinct pools of adaptive variants in a major crop pathogen @danielcroll.bsky.social #TESky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Hello BlueSky! Inaugural post here from the Sternberg Lab. We're excited to share our latest work, in which we teamed up with the @WiedenheftLab to study how DRT9 reverse transcriptases provide antiviral immunity. Here’s what we found: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Protein-primed DNA homopolymer synthesis by an antiviral reverse transcriptase

Bacteria defend themselves from viral predation using diverse immune systems, many of which sense and target foreign DNA for degradation. Defense-associated reverse transcriptase (DRT) systems provide...

biorxiv.org

1/ Transposable elements are often called "jumping genes" because they mobilize within genomes. 🧬 But did you know they can also jump 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 cells? 🤯 Our new study reveals how retrotransposons invade the germline directly from somatic cells. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... A short thread 🧵👇

I am thrilled to share our story online at @cellpress.bsky.social . Big thanks to all authors: Zhiping, Bill, @lubanlab.bsky.social, Keith & bluesky-less! authors.elsevier.com/c/1kjdaL7PXu... How to tame a genome invader? It takes wild koalas 🐨🐨 to learn it. #Retrovirus #koala #piRNA More below 👇

Young KRAB-zinc finger gene clusters are highly dynamic incubators of ERV-driven genetic heterogeneity in mice https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.26.640358v1

New paper alert! @svenklumpe.bsky.social, future Joint Fellow at IMBA and @impvienna.bsky.social, collaborating with the Brennecke Group at IMBA, used cryo-Electron Tomography to resolve the first structure of a retrotransposon inside the cell of a complex organism. Read more: imba.science/4itgs7L

Happy to share our manuscript on the in situ visualization of the copia retrotransposon in its final form today published in @cellcellpress.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/fulltex.... What’s new?