⏳ Last days to register for the Plant Meiosis Meeting! Join us in Poznań for PMM 2026, with invited speakers Neil Hunter, Mathilde Grelon, André Marquez and Kyuha Choi. Raphaël Mercier, Chris Morgan, and many others also confirmed. 55 talk slots are waiting to be filled! Register: pmm.amu.edu.pl

📣We’re excited to announce that registration for the Plant Meiosis Meeting is now open‼️ The website and preliminary program are live, and abstract submission will open soon. Book accommodation early due to major trade fairs in Poznań! See you in Poznań! 🌱 pmm.amu.edu.pl

A quick correction: the post below should say H3K4me3, not H3K9me3.👇

Piotr Ziolkowski@piotraz.bsky.social · 5mo ago

📣Our paper is out! 🤩 We found that local modification of H3K9me3 using CRISPR/dCas9 at hotspots changes crossover activity, bringing us closer to targeted recombination in plants.🌱 Huge thanks to @szymanskalejman.bsky.social, Wojtek, Ania, and Karolina! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

📣Our paper is out! 🤩 We found that local modification of H3K9me3 using CRISPR/dCas9 at hotspots changes crossover activity, bringing us closer to targeted recombination in plants.🌱 Huge thanks to @szymanskalejman.bsky.social, Wojtek, Ania, and Karolina! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Modifying meiotic recombination by targeting chromatin regulators to crossover hotspots in Arabidopsis

Targeting chromatin modifiers to DNA hotspots reveals causal link between histone marks, transcription, and meiotic recombination.

science.org

An early Christmas present from our team for all of the tomato 🍅 & recombination fans: Chromosome-scale Solanum pennellii and Solanum cheesmaniae genome assemblies reveal structural variants, repeat content and recombination barriers of the tomato clade biorxiv.org/content/10.648…

📣Plant Meiosis Meeting is back for its second edition‼️ Save the date: 9–11 September 2026, Poznań, Poland🌱 More details coming soon🤩

CRISPR-Cas–mediated heritable chromosome fusions in Arabidopsis | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... So cool!!!🤩

CRISPR-Cas–mediated heritable chromosome fusions in Arabidopsis

The genome of Arabidopsis thaliana consists of 10 chromosomes. By inducing CRISPR-Cas–mediated breaks at subcentromeric and subtelomeric sequences, we fused entire chromosome arms, obtaining two eight...

science.org

How do plants control the genes needed for successful sexual reproduction? Our new work uncovers the DREAM complex as a crucial regulator of meiotic recombination in Arabidopsis. Without DREAM, plants are sterile—key recombination genes like MER3 are switched off...

🌿🔍Paper alert‼️ A fantastic study from James Higgins’ group on SCEP3 – a newly identified component of the synaptonemal complex in plants! Happy that our team could be part of this! 😄🧬

Nature Plants@natplants.nature.com · 9mo ago

New OA Article: "SCEP3 initiates synapsis and implements crossover interference in Arabidopsis" rdcu.be/eQKqW A new synaptonemal complex protein; prevents clustering of crossovers during meiosis, so every pair of chromosomes receives at least one ‘obligate’ crossover.

⏰ Last week to apply! Don’t miss the chance to join our lab and explore the fascinating world of meiotic recombination 🌿 👉 Deadline: Nov 1, 2025

Piotr Ziolkowski@piotraz.bsky.social · 10mo ago

🚀 We’re hiring a Postdoc! Join our group in Poznan, Poland to study meiotic crossover recombination in plants 🌱 Highly motivated & enthusiastic candidates are welcome! 📅 Deadline: Nov 1, 2025 🔗 ibmib.web.amu.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Postdoc_position-2025-Ziolkowskis-Lab.pdf

🚨 New from our lab in #ScienceAdvances! RAD21L cohesin acts as both a 3D genome architect and a transcriptional gatekeeper in the male germline. Its loss disrupts both structure and function—highlighting the tight link between genome folding and gene regulation www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Meiotic cohesin RAD21L shapes 3D genome structure and transcription in the male germline

Deletion of the meiotic subunit RAD21L alters 3D chromatin structure and transcription in the mammalian male germ line.

science.org

A great story from @chloegirard.bsky.social, confirming and extending our findings on how interhomolog polymorphism shapes crossover distribution in plants 🌱

Chloe Girard, PhD@chloegirard.bsky.social · 10mo ago

🚨 First pre-print from my team !! TL;DR: presence of polymorphism (sequence differences between the homologous chromosomes) can *increase* the local rate of recombination in Arabidopsis thaliana, turning cold regions of the genome hot (purple v. grey) !

Please consider signing a petition to increase the spending on science in Poland / List otwarty w sprawie finansowania nauki, w tym @ncn.gov.pl www.petycjeonline.com/list_otwarty...

List otwarty do Prezydenta RP, Marszałka Sejmu RP, Marszałka Senatu RP,  Prezesa Rady Ministrów oraz Wiceprezesów Rady Ministrów w sprawie finansowania nauki, w tym zwłaszcza Narodowego Centrum Nauki

Szanowni Państwo, W niniejszej petycji prezentujemy List otwarty, który będzie wysłany do Kancelarii Prezydenta, Marszałków Sejmu i Senatu, Prezesa Rady Ministr&oacut...

petycjeonline.com

🚀 We’re hiring a Postdoc! Join our group in Poznan, Poland to study meiotic crossover recombination in plants 🌱 Highly motivated & enthusiastic candidates are welcome! 📅 Deadline: Nov 1, 2025 🔗 ibmib.web.amu.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Postdoc_position-2025-Ziolkowskis-Lab.pdf

Holliday junction–ZMM feedback ensures meiotic crossover assurance in yeast! Great work from the Joao Matos lab! 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Holliday junction–ZMM protein feedback enables meiotic crossover assurance - Nature

Holliday junctions maintain chromosome synapsis to enable crossover assurance in budding yeast.

nature.com

Fantastic work coming out of Neil Hunter’s lab! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Protecting double Holliday junctions ensures crossing over during meiosis - Nature

Conditional ablation experiments show that key components of the synaptonemal complex protect double Holliday junction recombination intermediates to ensure their resolution into crossover products, which are required for accurate chromosome segregation during meiosis.

nature.com

Thrilled to see our paper featured on the cover!!! 🎉🌽

Nature Plants@natplants.nature.com · 11mo ago

The September issue is now complete and fully online: www.nature.com/nplants/volu...

Hybridization and introgression are major evolutionary processes. Since the 1940s, the prevailing view has been that they shape plants far more than animals. In our new study (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... ), we find the opposite: animals exchange genes more, and for longer, than plants

Paper led by @movillome.bsky.social on unbiased detection of (somatic) #TE insertions in #Arabidopsis with @pacbio.bsky.social long reads out after peer review. Thanks to academic editor Leandro Quadrana for shepherding it through the review process. #plantscience link.springer.com/article/10.1...?

Long-read detection of transposable element mobilization in the soma of hypomethylated Arabidopsis thaliana individuals - Genome Biology

Background Because transposable elements (TEs) can cause heritable genetic changes, past work on TE mobility in Arabidopsis thaliana has mostly focused on new TE insertions in the germline of hypometh...

link.springer.com

A three year postdoctoral position is available in my group, investigating plant centromere structure, function and evolution @camplantsci.bsky.social www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/51488/

Very happy to have contributed to this collaborative work, with main drivers Marion Orsucci and Adrien Sicard: Sexual selection drives the speciation of lineages with contrasting mating systems: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Sexual selection drives the speciation of lineages with contrasting mating systems

Repeated shifts in ecological strategies often lead to consistent speciation patterns across phylogenies. One example is the transition from outcrossi…

sciencedirect.com

Here’s an interesting new paper on ROS1, an enzyme that removes DNA methylation and that is POSITIVELY controlled by DNA methylation. It’s repression during heat stress 🥵🌱 is crucial to suppress transposon mobility! 🧬 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Plants repress ROS1 expression to attenuate heat-induced transposon burst - Nature Plants

Plants suppress the DNA demethylase ROS1 under heat stress to limit transposon activation, preventing genome instability. This conserved mechanism balances stress adaptation with genome protection.

nature.com

Aneuploidy is the leading cause of pregnancy loss. In work led by @saracarioscia.bsky.social and @aabiddanda.bsky.social, we reanalyzed genetic testing data from 139,416 IVF embryos to discover variants associated with recombination phenotypes and aneuploidy risk. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Cryogenic electron microscopy has been used to determine the detailed structure of an intermediate state called a “D-loop” that forms when strands of DNA are exchanged during homologous recombination. buff.ly/pZZfIso

How many chromosomes can an animal have? In our paper out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social we show that the Atlas blue butterfly has 229 chromosome pairs- the highest in diploid Metazoa! These arose by rapid autosome fragmentation while sex chromosomes stayed intact. www.cell.com/current-biol...

Constraints on chromosome evolution revealed by the 229 chromosome pairs of the Atlas blue butterfly

The genome of the Atlas blue butterfly contains ten times more chromosomes than most butterflies, and more than any other known diploid animal. Wright et al. show that this extraordinary karyotype is ...

tinyurl.com

Do you want to know how to live-image internal floral organs with confocal microscope for up to 2 weeks? Check out our protocol: bio-protocol.org/en/bpdetail?... #Arabidopsis #Flower

Thrilled to share our latest work on meiotic recombination, where we mapped rates and distributions by sequencing thousands of individual sperm. This study was led by Stevan Novakovic and @caitlinharris.bsky.social , in collaboration with @davisjmcc.bsky.social and Cynthia Liu.

Thrilled to see such a thoughtful commentary on our paper by Maria Cuacos & Stefan Heckmann 🙌 Many thanks! 🔬🙏

Nature Plants@natplants.nature.com · 11mo ago

New OA Article: "Enhancing local meiotic crossovers in Arabidopsis and maize through juxtaposition of heterozygous and homozygous regions" rdcu.be/eDWJI With News & Views: "Diversity favoured: heterozygosity attracts crossovers" rdcu.be/eDWKQ

Breaking genetics news‼️🌱🌽 A natural DNA trick triples recombination in maize. What we first saw in Arabidopsis (@hendersi lab) a decade ago is now confirmed in crops—opening new doors for plant breeding. Published today in Nature Plants! More details 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Enhancing local meiotic crossovers in Arabidopsis and maize through juxtaposition of heterozygous and homozygous regions - Nature Plants

This study discovered that locally confined DNA differences boost crossover rates in both Arabidopsis and maize, revealing a conserved mechanism that can accelerate plant breeding and trait introgress...

nature.com

The identification of the very conserved CTF18, SGO2 and SPF2 as suppressors of centromere-proximal crossovers highlights the importance of cohesin turnover in this process and opens up new possibilities for plant breeding. Much more in the paper : www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Unlocking meiotic crossovers near plant centromeres

Crossovers (COs) ensure proper chromosome segregation during meiosis and generate genetic diversity. COs are non-uniformly distributed along chromosomes and almost universally suppressed in centromere...

biorxiv.org