Colliding ribosomes are potent signals of cellular stress. But do cells use ‘programmed’ ribosome collisions to regulate gene expression? I’m excited to present a new story from my lab led by Frederick Rehfeld(@fred-rehfeld.bsky.social) which revealed that the answer is YES! Read on to find out how👇

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Such a form of “multifactor auyhorization” of course protects posttranscriptional regulatory pathways from aberrant expression of individual components - as we observed in the case of DND1/NANOS3: their ectopic expression sends any cell into cell-cycle arrest.

The specific motif built up by these two RBPs cannot be identified by studying each of them in isolation, so one important question we would like to raise is: How many RBPs form heteromultimeric complexes with specificity other than the sum of the individual RBPs?

This work was spearheaded by Masataka Suzawa in my (NIAMS) and Chen Qiu in Traci Hall’s lab (NIEHS IRP) and initiated together with Masashi Yamaji’s group at Cincinnati Children’s. Wonderful collaboration with @eugenevalkov.bsky.social and Vittorio Sartorelli.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Delighted to share the story of two germline RBPs - one with little (DND1) and one with no (NANOS3) intrinsic sequence-specificity - that together build a continuous RNA binding surface recognizing a 7-mer (AUGAAUU) in target mRNA 3’UTRs, leading to deadenylation.

#RNAbiology #RNAlocalization #LocalizedTransaltion www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Very excited that our most significant work, a collaboration w/ Dr. Can Cenik at UT Austin on translational gene regulation, was finally published in Nature Biotechnology in a dual set of studies: Paper 1 -- an AI model trained to predict translation rates from mRNA sequences: rdcu.be/exN1l

Happy to share the latest work on a bacterial protein that inhibits human mRNA decay machinery, in collaboration with @smlea.bsky.social #RNAsky www.nature.com/articles/s41... Intracellular pathogen effector reprograms host gene expression by inhibiting mRNA decay | Nature Communications

Predicting expression-altering promoter mutations with deep learning www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... - well this looks useful!

New paper from my group rdcu.be/eoaRr "Trinucleotide substrates under pH–freeze–thaw cycles enable open-ended exponential RNA replication by a polymerase ribozyme" in Nature Chemistry — great collaboration with attwaterlab.uk.

Excited to finally be heading to RNA 2025 in San Diego! Have worked with amazing colleagues to co-organize this meeting so I can’t wait to see all the exciting science and connect with colleagues! @rnabiologist.bsky.social @kkarbstein.bsky.social

Very interesting work from Samie Jaffrey's lab: m6A promotes ribosome collisions, with big effects on RNA stability. #RNASky www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

The whole-genome sequences of herding dogs reveal how selection has sculpted the unique behavioral traits www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Congratulations to MSK’s Dr. Stefanie Gerstberger for receiving the @theaacr.bsky.social Women in Cancer Research Scholar Award! 🎉 #AACR25 Learn more about her fascinating work investigating #phenotypic plasticity & chemo resistance in colorectal cancer here: www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/20273...

Our primate T2T paper came out in Nature yesterday! It was a huge effort and I'm so grateful that I got the opportunity to work with this amazing group of scientists over the first two years of my PhD! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Rbm24a dictates mRNA recruitment for germ granule assembly in zebrafish Yizhuang Zhang et al show that loss of maternal Rbm24a causes complete degradation of germ granules and disappearance of primordial germ cells www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

#RNAsky #RNAbiology

Asada et al 2025 "The integrated stress response pathway controls cytokine production in tissue-resident memory CD4+ T cells" @natureportfolio.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

ICYMI: New online! The regulation and function of post-transcriptional RNA splicing

🧬@science.org Structural basis for nucleolin recognition of MYC promoter G-quadruplex | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @cancer-inst-purdue.bsky.social danzhou-yang.com #DNA #StructuralBiology

I am happy to share the latest paper from the lab. We detail a tripartite cell-free translation system based on the separation of mRNAs, ribosomes and ribosome-depleted cytoplasmic lysate from human cells, allowing for flexible reconstitution of translation reaction. #RNA #Ribosome

#RNA #RNASky

Highly sensitive method captures rare RNAs in blood to search for disease www.nature.com/articles/d41... @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Now online! Integrator loss leads to dsRNA formation that triggers the integrated stress response

A nuclear RNA degradation code is recognized by PAXT for eukaryotic transcriptome surveillance: Molecular Cell www.cell.com/molecular-ce... #RNAsky #RNAbiology #RNAdecay

This is Ripley. He was nervous about taking the stairs. May have panicked a bit. 12/10

Thank you for organizing this wonderful symposium and bringing us all together to discuss what we love most: the many amazing mechanisms in RNA biology! @vidigaljoana.bsky.social @drjz.bsky.social

It's difficult to focus on science with everything going on, but I still enjoy hearing about other people's work here, so I want to continue sharing ours. Congrats to postdoc Jong-Sun Lee for his outstanding work published in @cp-molcell.bsky.social! Details in thread👇 www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

In the midst of everything it feels particularly appropriate to highlight all the amazing #RNA research taking place at #NIH! Follow this thread to join us for our biannual #RNASymposium, this year featuring intramural research superstars!

Some good doggos in this figure. Canine genome-wide association study identifies DENND1B as an obesity gene in dogs and humans | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A nearly 9 year effort to design and implement new CLIP-based technologies to define multimeric protein assemblies on RNA. Enables ‘watching’ of RNP assemblies inside living cells Special congrats to Luca Ducoli, Brian Zarnegar, and Paul Khavari @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

i'm starved for good news these days. and some of the best news is hearing of former trainee successes. our old postdoc just wrote to say their ms was accepted at Nature, yes *the* Nature! i know some feel we shouldn't care about prestige signaling, but whatever. this is awesome news, go Lai lab!!!

Congrats to Atishay and Carlos for their review article on the epigenetics regulation of T cells: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to share this one! We developed an in vivo model for specific manipulation of transfer RNA acetylation and found it serves as a sentinel modification whose loss causes ribosome stalling and stress signaling. Implications for a genetic disorder and cancer. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Cool new paper on nuclear import/export from the Musser lab at Texas A&M. I happened to catch this on a poster at the #BPS2025 @biophysicalsoc.bsky.social meeting and it was a highlight! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

www.nature.com/articles/s41... ☝🏽

Happy pi (RNA) day!

Profiling transcriptome composition and dynamics within nuclear compartments using SLAM-RT&Tag Nadiya Khyzha ∙ Kami Ahmad∙ Steven Henikoff www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Combining bacterial end joining with programmable nucleases, we induced mtDNA deletions in human cells at varying heteroplasmy and examined their metabolic and cellular effects. Simple tool to apply across any cell type and engineer pathogenic mtDNA deletions. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Susan Gottesman and Gisela Storz, pioneers in regulatory RNA research, reflect on their personal scientific journeys and the evolution of their groundbreaking group research in two compelling articles. Gigi: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Susan: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #RNA

Excited to share our latest work, led by the incredible @automnenine.bsky.social (now an Ass. Prof. at Princeton)! We uncover key insights into the retrotransposition mechanisms of LINE-1 ORF2p, the enzyme responsible for writing a significant portion of our genome. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Congrats @automnenine.bsky.social and @kellythd-nguyen.bsky.social ! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Fantastic new paper out @nature.com! @merbllab.bsky.social discovers proteasome-derived peptides that function as a defence against bacterial infections. I'm not an immunologist but even I can tell that this finding has huge implications for new therapeutic interventions! 👉 go.nature.com/43k1a0H

Excited to share the work of Jonathan Perr where he uncovered a surprisingly common feature of cell surfaces - the presentation and clustering of RNA binding proteins with #glycoRNA. Critically support by #NIH @cp-cell.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

Here is the peer-reviewed version of our study showing how some TAD borders are essential for gene regulation and development. Loss of a single CTCF motif is sufficient to cause embryonic lethality. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Big congrats @sebastianfalk.bsky.social - super happy to have you here as a fantastic colleague at the @viennabiocenter.bsky.social!

Roche's SBX sequencing by expansion - preprint out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...