The heatwave is finally over - just in time for our “Frosty Foci” to finally come online! ❄️🦠 We found that E. coli builds a transient nucleolus-like ribosome biogenesis compartment during cold adaptation, when RNA (mis)folding makes ribosome biogenesis challenging.
Tobias Williams
@tobiaswilliams.bsky.social
Post doc at @FMIscience in the Chao lab | formerly @PeterMacCC | Views are my own
And mRNPs are not simply cargo. Super-resolution imaging reveals SON/SRRM2 scaffold networks that organize retained mRNPs and remodel with mRNP load, suggesting that nuclear speckle architecture is tightly coupled to this layer of mRNP quality control.
Nuclear speckles are “hot”, but how do they actually sequester mRNPs? We find that stalled mRNPs are retained in nuclear speckles by a combinatorial RNA-binding protein network. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
A combinatorial pre-mRNP retention factor network couples nuclear speckle architecture to splicing quality control
Cells must prevent incompletely spliced transcripts from entering the cytoplasm, yet how splicing status is recognized and converted into selective nuclear retention remains unclear. Here, we identify...
biorxiv.org
🧵 New preprint! How does a chromatin remodeler know where to act? In our latest study, we show how the transcription factor ADNP targets CHD4 remodeling activity to silence transposons and block CTCF. 👇 A thread on the ChAHP complex and how it weaves chromatin 🧬🔬🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Remodeling Activity of ChAHP Restricts Transcription Factor Access to Chromatin
Transcription in eukaryotes is regulated by chromatin-based mechanisms that control nucleosome occupancy, chromatin modifications, and transcription factor binding. We have previously shown that the transcription factor ADNP forms the ChAHP complex with the chromatin remodeler CHD4 and HP1 proteins, acting as a site-specific regulator of transcription and antagonist of CTCF binding. However, the molecular basis of these functions remained unclear. Here, we demonstrate that the CHD4 subunit is essential to antagonize CTCF and silence transcription of transposons, while HP1 proteins are dispensable. Although the remodeling activity of CHD4 is not required for ChAHP chromatin association, it is critical for both transposon repression and CTCF antagonism. Our findings support a model wherein ADNP recruits chromatin remodeling activity in a sequence-specific manner, enabling transcriptional control and local modulation of chromatin architecture. ### Competing Interest Statement The Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) receives significant financial contributions from the Novartis Research Foundation. Published research reagents from the FMI are shared with the academic community under a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) having terms and conditions corresponding to those of the UBMTA (Uniform Biological Material Transfer Agreement). Novartis Research Foundation, n.a. Swiss National Science Foundation, grant 310030_188835
biorxiv.org
📖 Happy to share our recent preprint! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We discovered how SINEs are kept silent: the ChAHP protein complex acts as a molecular brake on POL III transcription retrotransposons. A 🧵:
ChAHP Silences SINE Retrotransposons by Inhibiting TFIIIB Recruitment
Short interspersed nuclear elements (SINEs) are abundant non-autonomous transposable elements derived from RNA polymerase III (POL III)-transcribed short non-coding RNAs. SINEs retain sequence feature...
biorxiv.org
Are you a bioinformatician looking for an exciting opportunity in Melbourne? Is cancer genomics your passion? Apply now! www.nature.com/naturecareer...
Post-Doctoral Researcher - Parkville, Melbourne (AU) job with Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre – Parkville | 12837536
Exciting opportunity to join a research program led by Sarah-Jane Dawson at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (www.thedawsonlab.com).
nature.com
One week left to send your application for the image analyst position. If you are interested, apply!
🚨Job alert: We're hiring a Data Scientist (Image Analysis) to join our Facility for Advanced Imaging & Microscopy. The facility provides cutting-edge light and electron microscopy, high-content screening, image analysis and spatial-transcriptomics services. Apply at: www.fmi.ch/education-ca...
I am very excited to share our most recent work on how ‘Cell heterogeneity and fate bistability drive tissue patterning during intestinal regeneration’ ☺️ Thanks a lot to @silviabarbiero.bsky.social @davidbrueckner.bsky.social @priscaliberali.bsky.social @ehannezo.bsky.social and all the co-authors!
A perfect start in the new year! 🌱 Regenerating tissues are just an amazing spatio temporal controlled process! Our new manuscript explores how cell heterogeneity and bistability orchestrate intestinal regeneration. 🧵 biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
Proud to share our paper on the impact of transcription inhibition on mRNA export in cancer. A big thanks to collaborators, especially to Ewa Michalak, Vi Wickramasinghe, Jeff Chao and Mark Dawson @mafdawson.bsky.social. @fmiscience.bsky.social
Why can a human tolerate a drug that globally inhibits transcription? Why do transcription inhibitors not cure cancer? Our first paper of 2025 may help explain (some) of this! So incredibly proud of @tobiaswilliams.bsky.social & Ewa Michalak who led the work! www.cell.com/molecular-ce...