Happy to begin the year with the publication of a Journal Club article - Programmed ‘DNA splicing’ removes transposons from genes. rdcu.be/eXBym

Out today, our take on 6-methyladenine #6mA evolution in Eukaryotes @natgenet.nature.com. We asked a simple question, is really DNA 6mA common across the eukaryotes? The answer is "yes" if you're a unicellular eukaryote 🦠, not so if you're multicellular 🐝🌱🍄. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/9

Excited to share our new preprint on BioRxiv! A collaborative effort spanning many years and several labs to uncover what the germline chromosomes of Paramecium really look like. 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/5

Lab’s first paper is out!! We show the first structures of #Asgard #chromatin by #cryo-EM 🧬❄️ Asgard histones form closed and open hypernucleosomes. Closed are conserved across #Archaea, while open resemble eukaryotic H3–H4 octasomes and are Asgard-specific. More here: www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

How do pleiotropic TFs generate organized diversity in developing tissues? @spinalorga.bsky.social shows that PAX3 & PAX7 organize #SpinalCord by acting as both repressors & pioneer activators, regulated by #morphogens to ensure precise neural subtype specification @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4qumsla

🚨 Excited to share my first preprint on bioRxiv! 🎓 We uncover a non-canonical role of condensin I, beyond chromosome segregation 🧬 This work is the fruit of a collaboration between the @sandraduharcourt.bsky.social & @betermieri2bc.bsky.social labs! ➡️ doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Our latest paper on a histone methyltransferase-independent function of PRC2 controlling small RNA dynamics during programmed DNA elimination in Paramecium is now published in #NAR. #RNAbiology #TEsky #smallRNAs #PRC2 #DNAelimination 1/5 academic.oup.com/nar/article-...

Huge congratulations to Thomas on this well-deserved award. His PhD defense last week was outstanding too - a great moment. He’ll on the lookout for a postdoc position soon…spread the word!

Please re-post: Interested in chromatin and its evolution? Good news! There's still time to join us in beautiful Catalonia (9-12 Dec) to discuss eukaryotic, bacterial, archaeal, and viral chromatin and how it all hangs together meetings.embo.org/event/24-evo... Abstract deadline: 30 September

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📢 Institut Jacques Monod Seminar 📅 September 18th 📍 Institut Jacques Monod Invited by @sandraduharcourt.bsky.social’s lab, Peter Andersen ( @germline.bsky.social ) will give the IJM Seminar "Running to stand still – Recurrent innovation of animal germline genome regulation" ➡️ buff.ly/yaK2kTQ

New online: Binding of heterochromatin protein Rhino to a subset of piRNA clusters depends on a combination of two histone marks

Mechanisms and timing of programmed DNA elimination in songbirds www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We’ve uncovered Asgard chromatin structures formed by a Hodarchaeal histone : closed hypernucleosome conserved in archaea and an open form resembling the H3-H4 eukaryotic octasome. Fantastic work by @harshranawat.bsky.social! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #Chromatin #Asgard #Archaea #cryoEM

I add an amazing time last week at the Epigenetics 2025 meeting from the @gensocuk.bsky.social in sunny Belfast! Great discussions and insights on my PhD project! Also very honored to have been awarded the best poster prize!

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 🧵👇

🚨Cool new study from the lab neighbours! They look into two PAX proteins that orchestrate neuronal diversity!

Our paper on Alternative epigenetic states of Arabidopsis Transposable Elements is finally out in Genome Biology ! rdcu.be/d6Yly

Our #Paramecium artwork is featured on the cover of #NAR! doi.org/10.1093/nar/...

Work led by graduate student @trinitycookis.bsky.social and coauthors Alexandria Lydecker, @paulsauer.bsky.social, and @kasinath-lab.bsky.social is out today where we looked at the inhibition of PRC2 by histone PTMs associated with regions of active transcription. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A brief overview of my latest project in the Duharcourt lab, highlighted by @cnrs.bsky.social and a sneak peek in the head of an artist (aka my sister) inspired by Paramecium.

We have had multiple discussions about why people have not previously observed the very dramatic reduction in transcription upon PNUTS depletion. So I looked at our own TT-seq data and analysed it without including the spike-in. The numbers speak for themselves! Spike-in calibration is important!

Very cool new paper from the lab, delving into sRNAs selective degradation enabling TE control! Congrats @oliviacharmant.bsky.social 🎉🎉

Please see our paper in Nature on read-write mechanisms of H2AK119 ubiquitination by Polycomb repressive complex I. Congrats to the whole team, especially Victoria and huge thanks to our collaborator JP Armache! Also big thanks to Mark Foundation for Cancer Research for the support! rdcu.be/dZ5HZ