#TEsky Blinded by the lights? Re-examining the adaptive role of transposable elements in plants with population genomics doi.org/10.1016/j.pb...

Managed to get some Cuscuta plants started in Sheffield just in time for student projects next year- glad that the seeds germinated despite all the challenges during lab move from USA to UK!

How can plants maintain their genomic identity while also responding to the environment? @hajkdrost.bsky.social and I propose an "epigenetic toolkit" – a suite of epigenetic regulators that mediate the physiology-epigenome-genome crosstalk for adaptation. Read more here: www.cell.com/trends/plant...

We are looking for undergrads to visit us over the next summer! If you study in the UK, USA, or Canada, you might be eligible for the DAAD-RISE program 🇩🇪🧬 Learn more 👉 www.izmb.uni-bonn.de/en/pbb/news#DR Do excellent science in Bonn next summer! @puckerlab.bsky.social @unibonn.bsky.social

Thrilled to share our new review in Current Opinion in Genetics & Development on TE driven innovation in gene regulation🤘. I am honored to be part of this with two major TE aficionados @cedricfeschotte.bsky.social and @trono-lab.bsky.social #TEsky #TEworldwide authors.elsevier.com/c/1m6MC,LqAZ...

piRNA-directed DNA methylation may not be a mammalian invention, but can already be found in the germline of axolotl salamanders Donal O’Carroll and coworkers www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Interested in dissecting the epigenetic code of a cereal killer? Apply for our fully-funded @yorkshirebiodtp.bsky.social #PhD project on Striga epigenomics at Sheffield by 7th Jan 2026: www.findaphd.com/search/Proje... Open to UK/International students. #ParasiticPlant @sheffieldpps.bsky.social

Few Plant science programmes are left in the UK and they are critical to train the next generation. This move by @uniofnottingham.bsky.social goes against recommendations made in the recent PS Education manifesto. Big mistake! Sign the petition! nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

How is epigenetic information inherited? We found that CDCA7 proteins are critical players in the inheritance of DNA methylation at CG sites in plants, and this is true both in the lab and in the wild. How does this work? 🧵👇

Plz RP. Come join us at @slcuplants.bsky.social @cam.ac.uk to study effector-targeted plant processes impacting plant cell biology and development. www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/post-do... www.schornacklab.net

Very happy that our research on TE dynamics accross cotton evolution at @cragenomica.bsky.social and in collaboration with @jonathanfwendel.bsky.social et al. is now published in Genome Biology!: genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Interested in dissecting the epigenetic code of a cereal killer? Apply for our fully-funded @yorkshirebiodtp.bsky.social #PhD project on Striga epigenomics at Sheffield by 7th Jan 2026: www.findaphd.com/search/Proje... Open to UK/International students. #ParasiticPlant @sheffieldpps.bsky.social

@tobybarilbio.bsky.social and I are very excited to release MycoMobilome! A very extensive effort to discover, QC and annotate TEs across the fungal kingdom. 👉 Ready-to-use for your own genome with a simple tutorial! 👉 Metadata about TEs discovered in your genome! 👉 Contribute and get recognition!

Hey Yaniv Brandvain is not on Bluesky but his most recent biostats ebook is live ybrandvain.github.io/biostats/. His stats resources have been so helpful to me as I develop my own stats course, so check it out. Github repo here: github.com/ybrandvain/b...

🦖 Something HUGE just hatched. Plasmidsaurus now offers RNA sequencing for gene expression analysis: • As fast as 3 day turnaround • $50/sample for academia, $80 for industry • Up to ~10M unique transcript 3’ end reads per sample • Interactive results Explore Plasmidsaurus RNA-Seq today.

This work was led by Young Jun Kim, a very talented student in the lab. If you have ONT data and want to investigate DNA methylation, DMRcaller would be able to provide you more information than what was previously possible.

It was a pleasure to be part of this collaboration with the amazing @benebachelot.bsky.social and Parker Bartz, excited for the next manuscript stemming from this study!

New #PhD opportunities! NorthWestBio projects now online for 2026! Including a #photosynthesis project w/ @marjorielundgren.bsky.social looking at how photosynthetic diversity may affect future crop nutrient quality. Plant projects and the full set of projects available here: tinyurl.com/529yz4jd

Great to have Mike Axtell at Sheffield for a fantastic PPS cluster seminar on Cuscuta trans-species microRNAs- looking forward to seeing more exciting research from Mike’s group! #parasitic_plants

🚀 Today is the day! Excited to talk about our nanopore sequencing activities in Freiburg 🌱🧬 Including our plant genome sequencing workflow 👉 www.doi.org/10.20944/pre... @puckerlab.bsky.social @pietzenuk.bsky.social

TEtrimmer: a tool to automate the manual curation of transposable elements. #TransposableElements #ManualCuration #Genomics #Bioinformatics @natcomms.nature.com 🧬 🖥️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The postdoc position is open until filled, but I will start reviewing applicants this coming Monday. If you know someone who is looking, please share. careers.msu.edu/jobs/researc...

PIWI clade Argonautes are essential for transposon silencing. Without them, animals are sterile due to massive transposon activity. But how does piRNA-guided target interaction translate into silencing? PhD student Júlia Portell Montserrat has an intriguing answer www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

"Honey, what did Bastian @frommlab.bsky.social and Eric do to the miRNAs?!?" +special shout-out @katsutomookamura.bsky.social for initiating this work in 2011. as always, everything Katsutomo did was way ahead of its time. read about giant miRNA hairpin precursors here! www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Very excited to finally share the main findings from my PhD, now out as a preprint! We developed an epigenetic system to understand how plants remember and forget past infections - a phenomenon known as immune memory 🌱🧬🧠 Highlights below! 1/9 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The first in a coming array of papers looking at the co-transcriptome of 72 Botrytis genotype in 10 different host plants is out. Summary is the pathogen uses a combination of general virulence and host specific plasticity (not new genes) to infect dicots. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I’m missing out on the amazing science at #Botany2025, but super happy that my student Megan Adler is giving her first talk! July 29, TUE, 9 AM (PDT): “Dynamic DNA (de)methylation underpins parasitic #Cuscuta-host plant communication” If you are attending, don’t miss Megan’s talk!

This is a great program. We started in in 2016 and it just gets better and better! Check out some past fellows who are on Bluesky: @philcarella.bsky.social @mattbnt.bsky.social @psaima.bsky.social @fromani.bsky.social @sjb287.bsky.social @aribidopsis.bsky.social @cavycavs.bsky.social

⏱️ T - 7 days to go ⏱️ Only 1 week left to submit an abstract and apply for a travel grant to attend #JXB75 in Edinburgh in September 🌱 Don’t miss your chance - apply today! 🌱 #PlantScience 🧪 @sebiology.bsky.social

#Argonautes2025 - argonautes.img.cas.cz Join us in Prague 27-30/8/2025 for the next edition of the Argonaute meeting #miRNA #siRNA #piRNA & #PIWI Abstract submission for talk selection deadline is 30/6! Please, spread the word @rnasociety.bsky.social @rti-umasschan.bsky.social

Congratulations @emiliebrasset.bsky.social and colleagues! Great work.

Interesting - bik1 T-DNA mutants are smaller, have high levels of SA (autoimmune phenotype), but CRISPR mutants do not have more severe compromised defense. #plantimmunity #plantscience www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

#NoCass2025 registration now open! If you're a student or post-doc at Norwich or Cambridge, join us at the Norwich-Cambridge Science Symposium on 4-5 September - a great chance to share research & form collaborations. Find out more & register: lnkd.in/eH3We78t @nocassofficial.bsky.social

#ICAR2025 attendees! Stop by @theplantcell.bsky.social booth next week to learn about the Assistant Features Editor (AFE) program blog.aspb.org/the-plant-ce... 6pm Tuesday, meet the Editor-in-Chief, Pablo Manavella. 6pm Wednesday, meet the rest of the editors, including some current AFEs! See you!

I rarely have the energy to paint or draw now, but I still had fun making these figures for a paper using biorender. Although icons are made by biorender, it’s was quite a lot of work by @benebachelot.bsky.social and myself to come up with the final version- I am pleased with the look!

#TEsky DNA gains and losses in gigantic genomes do not track differences in transposable element-host silencing interactions doi.org/10.1038/s420...

Scientists have found a way to trick parasitic weeds into germinating when no host is present, causing them to die. Using engineered microbes, they’re producing key plant hormones to potentially turn this natural system into a powerful defense. buff.ly/4SvbjZP v @ucriverside.bsky.social #Science

I remember seeing this in the preprint version

Nature’s viny vampire..🧛 Discover what drives #parasiticplant Cuscuta campestris to insert its organs into host plants: Read EurekAlert! www.eurekalert.org/news-release... Read the original article here: doi.org/10.1093/pcp/... #PlantScience

Excited to share that I'll soon be recruiting a 3 year postdoc to join the lab @lancasterplantbio.bsky.social to work with me on Rubisco biochemistry and engineering. Official advertising details to be released very soon, watch this space! Please spread the word. 😀🌱🧪🥼

Re-upping this. If you need to do local synteny visualization, please give my workflow a try. github.com/cxli233/Tidy...

A wonderful scientist and a wonderful person. We should all strive to be remembered that way

📜 Planting Genomes in the Wild: Arabidopsis From Genetics History to the Ecology and Evolutionary Genomics Era 🧑‍🔬 @lauracleventhal.bsky.social, Megan Ruffley, ‪ @mexpositoalonso.bsky.social 📔 Annual Review of Plant Biology 🔗 www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... #️⃣ #PlantScience #PlantGenomics

Epigenetics Gordon Research Conference. Consider joining us for what will be an excellent, exciting meeting and will be held in Europe for the first time: 10-15 Aug25 Barcelona, Spain. Please repost and apply early - this meeting is popular! www.grc.org/epigenetics-...

Today we celebrate a wide diversity in plant sciences at the Symposium of our institute at @unicologne.bsky.social with support from @ceplas.bsky.social & @trr341.bsky.social #PlantScience

After an extensive search, the Danforth Center has named Giles Oldroyd, PhD, its next President. @gilesoldroyd.bsky.social is a renowned plant geneticist & one of only a few hundred scientists elected to both the UK @royalsociety.org & the US @nasonline.org. www.danforthcenter.org/news/interna...

Fully Funded PhD opportunity in my group! 125th Anniversary PhD Scholarship at @unibirmingham @UoBbiosciences studying (epi)genome plasticity in oaks at the @BIFoRUoB FACE facilities. Black & Black mixed heritage students (UK/Home-fee eligible) 30 April 2025 – RT🙏 More info👇

In our latest @biorxiv-genomic.bsky.social preprint, we describe our approach to use PacBio HiFi reads to detect somatic TE transposition -- good enough to detect rare events that are present in only single cells. Led by Andrea Movilli. #plantscience www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

It's not a bug, it's a feature 😉 Here's a really nice review from the Slotkin group: www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... Or one from my group about a heat stress responsive TE and how it modifies gene expression and stress responsiveness. academic.oup.com/nar/article/...