Now out! We show that TEs can be horizontally transferred between fungal species via Starships. Once transferred, these TEs can become active, changing the genome organization and affecting the lifestyle of the recipient fungus. www.nature.com/articles/s41... @oggenfussursula.bsky.social #TEsky

🌾 In this #OpenAccess article, Wu et al. report that TE-mediated #DNA methylation leads to grain filling with a maternal effect in high-latitude Japonica rice varieties, possibly associated with northward expansion of #rice. 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/jipb... @wileylifesci.bsky.social #PlantScience

🧬🔎 Deep dive into plant #TransposableElements ❓ If you identify all autonomous #TEs, you will automatically also have all non-coding derivates, right? Right? Well, no! Not even close. Check out here, how much you are missing: 📚 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #TEsky

Our paper is now out in Nature: “Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres” www.nature.com/articles/s41... A short thread on how retrotransposons helped give rise to yeast point centromeres. 1/14

Mitosis has a timing system. If chromosomes attach properly, cells divide on schedule and keep proliferating. If attachment is slow or incomplete, the delay is recorded — and daughter cells stop dividing. We explore this link in our new preprint. 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

1/3 Jellyfish and anemones also sleep, despite not having a brain Not only do they sleep, but their behavior is affected if they lack sleep; they become clumsier and need to catch up on lost sleep. Interestingly, they sleep 8 hours a day, just like us. (paper) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Extensive horizontal transfer of transposable elements shapes fungal mobilomes @currentbiology.bsky.social by @jromeijn.bsky.social et al from @mfseidl.bsky.social www.cell.com/current-biol...

CRISPR-Cas–mediated heritable chromosome fusions in Arabidopsis | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Very nice work from Holger Puchta & colleagues

NEW Publication🥳 Rapid #evolution is thought to be disadvantageous due to the accumulation of deleterious #mutations. We identify multiple lineages of rapidly evolving and stable #yeast that are many millions of years old 🔗: academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-...

We are looking for a colleague to join us at RWTH Aachen University: 🌱 Full Professor in Stress Resilience of Plants (W3 tenured) 📌What are we looking for? Someone working with us strategically at the interface of plant biology/ physiology/ resilience #academicjobs #facultyjobs #PlantJobs 1/4

@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!

How does life evolve to adapt to modern cities? Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation. 🧵(1/n) @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515

Roles of No-Go RNA decay in the control of plant viruses and transposable elements ->BMC Plant Biology | More from Lil' Dr Glen EcoChat at BigEarthData.ai

New Software Simplifies Analysis of “Jumping Genes” Ralph Panstruga, @toheitka.bsky.social, and Lisa Fürtauer from @rwth.bsky.social in @natcomms.nature.com (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-63889-y) www.rwth-aachen.de/cms/root/wir...

I'm excited to announce our new biorxiv preprint, wherein we investigate the evolution of the weirdest genetic locus I've ever seen! Behold the tgr genes of the social amoeba, which mediate self/non-self discrimination during facultative multicellularity 🐅 🧵 1/ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Collaborative work between Durbin Lab at Cambridge & Svardal Lab at Antwerp 🐠 🔗 to manuscript: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Our recent article on transposable elements and aging - which made the June cover - is the focus of a new Highlight. "Highlight: 'Jumping Genes' Caught in an Aging Merry-Go-Round" 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf094 🖌️ Miriam Merenciano #genome #TEsky

Super excited to release a huge evolution project on the works for many years: Evolution experiments synchronized across climates to understand rapid adaptation Preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025... All data available: www.grene-net.org/data #MOILAB @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social @hhmi.org 🧵👇

🌱 We will soon open the search for a new W3 Professor in Plant Stress Resilience / Molecular Plant Physiology. 🌏Where? Germany, RWTH Aachen University @rwth.bsky.social We plan to look widely. Please let me know, if you want to be updated on the job announcement. #AcademicJobs

#Pisumsativum #Missionaccomplished Genes identified for: - flowers reverting from white to red; - the yellow pod; - the edible "parchmentless" pod - great for pesto di bacelli saygood.it/2018/07/05/p... And much more, open access 🔽 and proud press release www.jic.ac.uk/press-releas...

Do you like potatoes? Don't miss our most recent work on tetraploid potato genome! @nature.com #potato #genomics #history #evolution

New preprint! We investigated the evolution of supergenes and mechanisms underlying distyly in Linum species that diverged ca 33 Mya. 1/8 bsky.app/profile/bior...

Happy to share that our paper "Analyses of Transposable Elements in Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Support Evolutionary Parallels With Filamentous Plant Pathogens" is out. academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...

Does the smell and flavor of strawberries depend on variations in gene-associated transposons? It seems so! Check out our new preprint! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Lungfish xkcd.com/3064

Multi-omics analysis reveals that a 254-bp transposon induces defensive camouflage in an alpine plant and reduces herbivory by caterpillars of a specialist butterfly. Protective effects of this camouflage are reflected in the long-term dynamics of co-evolving plant and butterfly populations.

1/46 Hey folks, we have a new paper out on the MuLTEE. Strap in and I’ll tell you the story of how this “little paper on polyploidy” turned into the most data rich paper our lab has produced, largely thanks to the leadership and work ethic of @kaitong25.bsky.social. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We did it! We caught Starship #transposons moving between #fungal species in the lab, including between species separated by ~100my. We think Starships are a mediator of HGT in fungi, akin to conjugative elements in bacteria. Check out the preprint. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our preprint describing a family of Tn7-like transposons that evolved to target CRISPR repeats is now published at Mobile DNA #Tn7 #transposons #mobileDNA 1/10 mobilednajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Polyploidy & Arabidopsis! We found tetraploid-characteristic haplotypes to be made of novel ‘mosaics’ forged from multiple allelic sources in our new paper: journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

🌱⤴️🧬⤵️ Really interesting preprint on somatic TE activity detected in methylation-deficient Arabidopsis lines! From @movillome.bsky.social et al. A notable point is the variable extent of mobilization across individuals. Is it random or an environmental factor? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

This is cool!! Exogenous chromosomes introduced into yeast cells will either be transcribed and intermingle with host chromosome or be segregated and compartmentalised - their fate is determined by similarity in GC content to host chromosome

Study in @annbot.bsky.social: Plants that need long daylight hours to flower show concerning inflexibility in flowering times as climate warms, unlike their short-day counterparts. #Botany #PlantScience 🧪

Years of work by a tremendous group, lead by Gabriel Marais. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Our new paper shows that plasticity that has evolved to deal with one stressful situation, can help plants to adapt rapidly to new stressful situations. doi.org/10.1073/pnas... @meebangor.bsky.social @rbgkew.bsky.social @ukri.org @pnas.org

#TEsky A CACTA-like transposon in the Anthocyanidin synthase 1 (Ans-1) gene is responsible for apricot fruit colour in the raspberry (Rubus idaeus) cultivar ‘Varnes’ doi.org/10.1371/jour...

The first pan-plastome study with collaborators at Bielefeld University / CeBiTec and TU Dresden: doi.org/10.1186/s128... @bpucker.bsky.social @toheitka.bsky.social #Genomics #Evolution 2/🧵

I started working on genetic therapies for Mendelian disease in 2000 - and in the subsequent 25 years have never seen a disease where the molecular aetiology has undergone as giant an "OH WOW" moment as this. www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

super proud - our new work about the invasions triggered by two troublesome TEs in Nat. Comm. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A nematode gene family evolved by fusing with a transposon! This is such a cool story, congratulations @migueldvalmeida.bsky.social et al! 🙌

🧬How do repeatomes (genomes) evolve, if plants are fully dependent on the host? 📚 Read here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🌱We look into the repeat landscapes of 11 species from an iconic holoparasitic plant family, the Hydnoraceae. (1/6)

Interesting and beautiful on many different levels

Following up on Nat. Commun. 2018, we analyzed the relationship between TE transcription and expression levels of genes involved in TE silencing in somatic and germline tissues across vertebrates. doi.org/10.1093/gbe/...

Now hiring: Are you a technician? Do you enjoy the lab? Plants 🌱? DNA 🧬? Microscopes 🔬? We are looking for you! We are looking for a Biological Technical Assistant for the new molecular botany lab at @rwth.bsky.social Aachen. Please apply! www.biologie.rwth-aachen.de/cms/biologie...

...and it doesn't end there: In a 2nd @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social that we posted back-to-back with @bjornschumacher.bsky.social‘s lab we show that in addition to affecting epigenetic inheritance, temperature perception controls genetic inheritance via transposons! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We found this ghost redwood tree this weekend while camping this weekend @jrossibarra.bsky.social . It's a rare chlorophyll mutant growing clonally off of the base of huge coastal redwood

🧬🔍There are 50 petabases of freely-available DNA sequencing data. We introducing Logan Search which allows you to search for any DNA sequence in minutes, bringing Earth’s largest genomic resource to your fingertips. 🏔️ logan-search.org 🏔️ #Genomics #Bioinformatics #OpenScience

Hello BlueSky, Let’s talk about plant epigenetics? See our last paper in Plant Physiology doi.org/10.1093/plph... @plantphys.bsky.social @inrae-france.bsky.social

I have started to create a plant epigenetics starter pack. Please let me know if you want to be added or if you want to suggest someone! go.bsky.app/HyTwdc2

Thrilled to see this paper out! 🎉 We analyzed 470 (!) angiosperm genomes and identified and dated 132 whole-genome duplication events. Importantly, we observed that WGD occurrence dates are not randomly distributed, but clustered at times of major environmental upheaval.