🚨New paper out! In our @MolCellNews paper, we solve a piece of the puzzle of how our genome folds. We found the two specific molecular "brakes" in the CTCF protein that stop DNA loop extrusion. One of the final pieces of my PhD! tinyurl.com/29uuc5by
Roman Barth
@romanbarth.bsky.social
Postdoc in the lab of David Baker | University of Washington | Building new molecular motors | Schmidt Science Fellow 2024 | PhD with Cees Dekker @ TUD
Telomeres stall DNA loop extrusion by condensin
Telomeres stall DNA loop extrusion by condensin
Analikwu et al. show that dense linear arrays of the telomeric protein Rap1 on DNA block DNA loop extrusion by condensin. Rap1-induced stalling depends on array length and protein density and leads to a local chromatin decompaction during anaphase, revealing how protein arrays can regulate SMC-driven genome organization.
dlvr.it
Here's a new very exciting paper from our #CDlab: www.cell.com/cell-reports... In an exemplary in vitro/in vivo study, 1st authors @btanalikwu.bsky.social & Alice Deshayes showed that dense linear protein arrays (e.g. telomeres) do stop loop-extruding SMCs! Great collaboration with Marcand lab.
Latest #CDlab paper online now: Cohesin supercoils DNA during loop extrusion www.cell.com/cell-reports... This extensive study was led by Jan Michael Peters at Vienna; our lab contributed mostly modeling of plasmid supercoiling (@romanbarth.bsky.social) and single-molecule data (Richard Janissen).
Congratulations to the 2025 Schmidt Science Fellows - exciting that you'll be joining the community!!
Schmidt Science Fellows@schmidtfellows.bsky.social · last yr.We are excited to announce our 2025 Schmidt Science Fellows! 32 early career researchers, nominated by the world’s leading research universities, who will take an interdisciplinary approach to advancing discovery schmidtsciencefellows.org/news/2025-fe...
We have 3 openings for ambitious postdocs or PhD students in our #CDlab - for exciting single-molecule biophysics research on nuclear pores, peroxisomes, or archaeal divisomes. Check it out and apply: ceesdekkerlab.nl/come-join-us/ RT=nice!
Huge congrats to our #CDlab PhD student @romanbarth.bsky.social for winning the prestigious 2025 Weintraub Award for his PhD thesis work on SMC motor proteins! www.fredhutch.org/en/news/rele... Great honor and well deserved Roman!
I'm excited to share that I've been selected as one of the 10 recipients of the prestigious Weintraub Award from @fredhutch.bsky.social this year! 🏆 I owe a massive debt of gratitude to the remarkable colleagues and mentors who have shaped my path, especially @ceesdekker.bsky.social !!
Check out this cool article by @newscientistnl.bsky.social on our latest work about direction-switching molecular motors racing along DNA: www.newscientist.nl/nieuws/eiwit...
Latest #CDlab paper now at @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... In this paper, we identify two amino acid motifs on CTCF that impede cohesin-mediated DNA loop extrusion - important as CTCF and cohesin are crucial to the structure and regulation of our chromosomes.
CTCF stall DNA 🧬 loop ➰ extrusion by cohesin - but exactly how it pulls this off is a 'mechanistic mystery' (to cite @andersshansen.bsky.social, Nucleus, 2020). We just preprinted 📜 a new study @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social that provides some answers to this enigma: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Nice work from @romanbarth.bsky.social and all collaborators. It was exciting contributing to this work!
Roman Barth@romanbarth.bsky.social · 2y agoExciting news 📃🧬🔬 Today we report on the dynamics of a fascinating class of molecular motors, so-called SMC proteins in @cp-cell.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...
Very exciting new paper from @romanbarth.bsky.social @ceesdekker.bsky.social : cohesin is a one-sided extruded but it can switch direction with help from NIPBL
Cees Dekker@ceesdekker.bsky.social · 2y agoNew discovery from our #CDlab reported in Cell @cp-cell.bsky.social today: SMC motor proteins have a left-right ‘gearbox’ and can switch direction in DNA loop extrusion! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 1/
Check out Cees' fantastic summary of our most recent research!!
Cees Dekker@ceesdekker.bsky.social · 2y agoNew discovery from our #CDlab reported in Cell @cp-cell.bsky.social today: SMC motor proteins have a left-right ‘gearbox’ and can switch direction in DNA loop extrusion! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 1/
Exciting news 📃🧬🔬 Today we report on the dynamics of a fascinating class of molecular motors, so-called SMC proteins in @cp-cell.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...
My first post! Hi science community 👋🧬 We have been trying to figure out the mechanistic mysteries about SMC motor proteins. They extrude our genome constantly into loops. We know that that's important. But how it works, is a matter of intense debate! Today, we report a piece of the puzzle:
