New pre-print from the lab! Lead by Mariia Mikhova and in collaboration with Kefei Yu’s lab @msumgi.bsky.social we dug into the molecular mechanism of class switch recombination in B cells using simultaneous RNA and protein single-molecule imaging. 1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

First test of live-cell single-molecule imaging in a new lab and it looks very promising!!! Thanks to @ceitec-cellimcf.bsky.social instruments at @ceitec.eu and @masarykuniversity.bsky.social. 🙌 #microscopy #singlemolecule #livecell #newlab

What is actually a high-risk, high-gain project proposal? Great to hear the answer directly from the ERC president Maria Leptin. 🎧 nightscience.buzzsprout.com/1744020/epis... Night Science (@nightsciencepod.bsky.social) is simply an amazing podcast for scientists! #ERC #NightScience #GrantWriting

79 | Maria Leptin and creativity in grant writing - Night Science

Maria Leptin is the President of the ERC, the European Research Council, and Professor of genetics at the University of Cologne. In this episode, Maria describes her own path as one driven by observat...

nightscience.buzzsprout.com

I’m excited to share that #CzechBioImaging selected my project for funding to establish live-cell single-molecule imaging at the @ceitec-cellimcf.bsky.social core facility at @ceitec.eu , @masarykuniversity.bsky.social ! Can’t wait to bring this technology to Brno! 🔬✨

Huge thanks to @masarykuniversity.bsky.social for organizing Grants Week! Hearing from holders of prestigious EU grants and learning from their experiences was very inspiring. www.grantsweek.muni.cz

GRANTS WEEK | Grants Week

25 - 27 November 2025 (Komenského nám. 2, Roger Scruton Hall)

grantsweek.muni.cz

New Print Alert! A fun collab with Kathy Meek at MSU. Led by talented bioinformatician Giovanni Pascarella we demonstrate that Ku70/80 binds intronic antisense Alu elements to inhibit cryptic splice sites. For details see the thread below! 1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Ku limits aberrant mRNA splicing promoted by intronic antisense Alu elements

Alu elements are short repeats that occupy approximately 10% of the human genome. Saturation of primate genomes with Alu sequences occurred at the prosimian/new-world monkey evolutionary juncture. Alu...

biorxiv.org

IT'S HAPPENING! 💥 I'm psyched to launch the collaboration between @qedscience.bsky.social & @openrxiv.bsky.social @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social! Preprint + q.e.d = your science is out there, and anyone can appreciate it. Let's care about making discoveries, and not on “getting published” (1/3) 👇

Our paper in Science is out! @souravagrawal.bsky.social, @rlynn.bsky.social, @susvirkar.bsky.social, and the rest of the team show human RPA is a telomerase processivity factor essential for telomere maintenance. This reshapes our thinking about telomerase regulation. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Human RPA is an essential telomerase processivity factor for maintaining telomeres

Telomerase counteracts telomere shortening by repeatedly adding DNA repeats to chromosome ends. We identified the replication protein A (RPA) heterotrimer as a telomerase processivity factor critical ...

science.org

1/10 Genome maintenance by telomerase is a fundamental process in nearly all eukaryotes. But where does it come from? Today, we report the discovery of telomerase homologs in a family of antiviral RTs, revealing an unexpected evolutionary origin in bacteria. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Antiviral reverse transcriptases reveal the evolutionary origin of telomerase

Defense-associated reverse transcriptases (DRTs) employ diverse and distinctive mechanisms of cDNA synthesis to protect bacteria against viral infection. However, much of DRT family diversity remains ...

biorxiv.org

Our new preprint is up! This is the main postdoc work of @wiesner-t.bsky.social focusing on exocytosis along the axon shaft and its regulation by the sub membrane actin-spectrin scaffold: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Read the thread below for a summary of our findings 🧵1/11

🚨 Excited to share my main postdoc work from the @jenscs83.bsky.social lab, now out in Cell Reports! 👉 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... We dissect how shelterin proteins organize at telomeres in human cancer cells—revealing distinct subcomplexes that maintain chromosome ends. 🧵

TRF1 and TRF2 form distinct shelterin subcomplexes at telomeres

The shelterin complex protects chromosome ends from aberrant DNA repair and regulates telomerase access to telomeres. Shelterin is composed of six pro…

sciencedirect.com

Finally out in Nature Chem Bio: SNAP-tag2 for faster and brighter protein labeling www.nature.com/articles/s41... Thank you Steffi and Veselin.

SNAP-tag2 for faster and brighter protein labeling - Nature Chemical Biology

SNAP-tag is a widespread tool for labeling protein for bioimaging. Now, Kühn et al. report SNAP-tag2 with increased labeling kinetics and brightness, which translates into a better performance in live...

nature.com

Great new DNA/Q-Paint method published by our @ucl colleague Sabrina Simoncelli - lucky to have been part of it! Check out the Ecadherin and collagenIV imaging in the fly retina at up to 15micron depth www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Super-resolution imaging in whole cells and tissues via DNA-PAINT on a spinning disk confocal with optical photon reassignment - Nature Communications

Zaza and colleagues demonstrate that DNA-PAINT on a spinning disk confocal microscope with optical photon reassignment enables high-resolution imaging across large fields and imaging depths, resolving...

nature.com

Here come our new palette of fluorescent dyes. The BD dyes endeaves to balance glowy brightness, robust photostability, and biocompatibility. Let's boost 4D dynamic super-resolution imaging!!! www.nature.com/articles/s41... @spirochrome.com

A palette of bridged bicycle-strengthened fluorophores - Nature Methods

A suite of bridged rhodamine dyes (BriDyes) offers excellent brightness, solubility, photostability, and tunable cell permeability along with resistance to photoblueing, making them exceptional all-pu...

nature.com

The ERC welcomes the offer of substantial additional budget from @ec.europa.eu for the development of a new ERC funding instrument offering larger, longer-term grants, as announced by President Ursula Von der Leyen at the Sorbonne this morning. 👉 europa.eu/!NTYTTV

Choose Europe for Science: ERC welcomes new budget for 'super grants'

The Scientific Council of the European Research Council welcomes the offer of substantial additional budget from the European Commission for the development of a new ERC funding instrument offering la...

europa.eu

A great end to another Telomeres CSH meeting! It was nice to see and discuss science with many colleagues. With @cijilim.bsky.social @jenscs83.bsky.social, Stone, Nandakumar, Zappulla labs at banquet

🚨🔬💗Whether investigating cell organelles or mapping proteins, together with Victor Puelles's lab we lay a roadmap for selecting optimal #ExM and #SuperResolution #microscopy combinations. Daria Aristova and Dominik Kylies review with amazing co-authors pubs.aip.org/aip/apr/arti...

Excited to share our preprint on the molecular architecture of heterochromatin in human cells 🧬🔬w/ @jpkreysing.bsky.social, @johannesbetz.bsky.social, @marinalusic.bsky.social, Turoňová lab, @hummerlab.bsky.social @becklab.bsky.social @mpibp.bsky.social 🔗 Preprint here tinyurl.com/3a74uanv

Our new findings on how chromosomes get ready for cell division are now published in @cellpress.bsky.social! Congratulations, Kai, @andibrunner.bsky.social and everyone else involved! 🤩 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Nanoscale DNA tracing reveals the self-organization mechanism of mitotic chromosomes

How genomic DNA is folded during cell division to form the characteristic rod-shaped mitotic chromosomes essential for faithful genome inheritance is …

sciencedirect.com

EMBL@embl.org · 2y ago

Did you know that DNA must form overlapping loops to give rise to the well-known X-shape of chromosomes? 🧬🧪 New research from EMBL's Ellenberg Group provides new insights into the process of chromosome formation. @ellenberglab.bsky.social @andibrunner.bsky.social www.embl.org/news/science...

1/Out today in @naturecomms.bsky.social, “A CPC-shelterin-BTR axis regulates mitotic telomere deprotection”. Here we identify the mechanism that unwinds telomere-loops (t-loops) during mitotic arrest to activate the DNA damage response and signal mitotic stress. www.nature.com/articles/s41....

A CPC-shelterin-BTR axis regulates mitotic telomere deprotection - Nature Communications

Here the authors reveal how telomeres signal mitotic stress. A key protein network alters their structure exposing telomere ends to signal mitotic stress, ultimately triggering a controlled DNA damage...

nature.com

#Hiring! The postdoctoral position in my lab at Pharm Chem KU is open!! This is an NIH-funded position to work on cytochrome P450 metabolism using a combination of mass spectrometry proteomics and live-cell imaging. employment.ku.edu/staff/29681BR

Super excited to share our most recent pre-print, lead by K99 fellow @heyzajr.bsky.social, who will be starting his own lab at Wayne State University in February! The question is how are DNA breaks held together during HR?? 1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The PST repeat region of MDC1 is a tunable multivalent chromatin tethering domain

DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) are widely considered the most cytotoxic DNA lesions occurring in cells because they physically disrupt the connectivity of the DNA double helix. Homologous recombinati...

biorxiv.org

1/Delighted to announce the newest paper from our lab, “Homologous recombination promotes non-immunogenic mitotic cell death upon DNA damage”, is out today in @naturecellbiology.bsky.social, www.nature.com/articles/s41....

Homologous recombination promotes non-immunogenic mitotic cell death upon DNA damage - Nature Cell Biology

Szmyd et al. show that DNA repair pathways impact whether cells with DNA lesions arrest in mitosis. The formation of homologous recombination-driven double Holliday junctions elicits mitotic cell deat...

nature.com

We made a photoswitchable HaloTag (psHaloTag), which can reversibly turn-on fluorogenic dyes upon illumination 💡. Congrats to Franzi, Bego and all co-authors, check out our preprint below 👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

1/8 Super excited to share my first-author preprint in @jenscs83.bsky.social lab! We measured the shelterin complex stoichiometry and dynamics at telomeres in living cells. Our results re-envisions the architecture of telomeres in human cancer cells. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

TRF1 and TRF2 form distinct shelterin subcomplexes at telomeres

The shelterin complex protects chromosome ends from the DNA damage repair machinery and regulates telomerase access to telomeres. Shelterin is composed of six proteins (TRF1, TRF2, TIN2, TPP1, POT1 an...

biorxiv.org

Our paper of today is the result of the creative hard work of first authors Richard Janissen and @romanbarth.bsky.social in our #CDlab, in collaboration with Iain Davidson and Jan-Michael Peters of the IMP Vienna BioCenter. Enjoy reading our paper here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 10/10

All eukaryotic SMC proteins induce a twist of −0.6 at each DNA loop extrusion step

Measuring single DNA loop extrusion steps of individual eukaryotic SMCs revealed that ATP binding induces a DNA twist of −0.6.

science.org

🔺🔺🔺RED TRIANGLE ALERT 🔺🔺🔺 Ever wonder how #TADs compare across the tree of life?Look no further & read our Review!!! Find out what genes & 3D chromatin can & can't do in Bacteria! Archeae! Yeast! Plants! Animals! SMCs & RNA-Pol are the only thing they have in common www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Evolution and function of chromatin domains across the tree of life - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology

Szalay et al. discuss cross-kingdom similarities and differences in 3D chromatin folding in relation to gene regulation, including in bacteria, archaea, mammals and plants. This comparison reveals cer...

nature.com

“In this Review, we discuss #telomere protection, maintenance and damage. We highlight the differences between #human and #mouse telomere biology that may contribute to discrepancies between human #diseases and mouse models.” #telomerase #aging www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Telomere function and regulation from mouse models to human ageing and disease - Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology

Telomere dysfunction, usually owing to shortening, activates cellular senescence and can contribute to age-associated diseases and cancer. Mouse models are crucial for telomere research, but human and...

nature.com

Super excited to share our latest paper led by graduate student Mariia Mikhova! She used single molecule live cell imaging to dissect the kinetics of DNA break repair by non homologous end joining. We estimate the NHEJ pathway can repair up to 1000 breaks per minute! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Single-molecule imaging reveals the kinetics of non-homologous end-joining in living cells - Nature Communications

Non-homologous end joining repairs most double stranded DNA breaks in human cells. Here, the authors apply a single-molecule imaging approach visualizing the recruitment of DNA repair proteins to DNA ...

nature.com

First attempt in a (loosely defined) Single-Molecule Biophysics starter pack. Please share and (self-) nominate. go.bsky.app/CteFZM5