We are hiring 2 Postdoctoral fellows for our lab (www.mueller-lab.org): 1, Transcription control of metabolic adaptation in development (shorturl.at/oeG6U). 2, Semantic rules of developmental gene regulation (shorturl.at/KdHmJ) #jobs #transcription #zebrafish #zebrafishrock #IZFS

Structures of viral 4E bound to modified mRNA 5' caps including 2`O-ribose methylation - very nice work!

Using our bee-tracking drone, we discovered that honey bees 🐝 have highly precise and individual routes. Now published at @currentbiology.bsky.social : doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

Our new preprint is out! A state-dependent neural circuit resolves approach–avoidance conflicts www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Fantastic work led by Devika Bodas, with key contributions from Marine Balcou, and a great collaboration with Lisa Scheunemann Lab, fearuting Şevval Demirci.

as SPSN lines also express in a few neurons in the brain that can induce a sex peptide response.

Sex Peptide Response Inducing Neurons (SPRINz) in the brain, not SPSN in the genital tract induce post-mating responses from membrane-tethered sex peptide expression.

Ooooh. Cool new paper on origins of life. A simple 45-nucleotide RNA molecule that can perfectly copy itself. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Sex peptide targets distinct higher order processing neurons in the brain to induce the female post-mating response #Drosophila

See our fantastic story in @elife.bsky.social from Karthik Nallasivan and @deepanshund.bsky.social well distilled by our press office champion Michel Addelman @mcf-uom.bsky.social @fbmh-uom.bsky.social elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre... www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/f...

Excited to share our tour de force in identifying neurons in the brain as targets of a seminal peptide thanks to Karthik Nallasivan and @deepanshund.bsky.social @mcf-uom.bsky.social @fbmh-uom.bsky.social published in @elife.bsky.social elifesciences.org/articles/98283

Better funding exciting research!

At Hudson Institute, researchers found that 3-base RNA fragments with a 2′-O-methyl guanosine can block immune sensors TLR7 and TLR8. This natural mechanism helps prevent autoimmunity and may guide future anti-inflammatory therapies. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

One week left to apply for the postdoc position at MRC-LMB in Cambridge. Join our team for an exciting project on transcription-coupled splicing to understand human gene regulation 🧬 Feel free to get in touch directly #postdoc #cryoEM #biochemistry

Signaling to make human ribosomes: Connections between the cytoplasm and the nucleolus

Interested in antisense oligonucleotides? Check our story about downstream-of-gene ASOs (DG-ASOs)! Together with the Roche Innovation Center we identified transcription termination windows of protein-coding genes as ASO target regions. link to BioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🧬🌉Online @science.org Programmable genome editing in human cells using RNA-guided bridge recombinases | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Apple will try and persuade you to update Keynote. Don't! The new one is foul, the equivalent of a budget airline, advertising everywhere and nudges to try and extract more of your cash and embed their AI. I'll give htem a month then find a new program.

Final call — submissions close 15 March 2026! We’re wrapping up submissions for our Bio‑protocol special issue on RNA detection methods. If you’ve built a clear experimental or computational protocol that others can reliably use in RNA field, this is your moment. en.bio-protocol.org/content17

Make your gene knockouts more efficient with multiplexed Cas12a sgRNAs. Our new paper is out now, with tools available from @addgene.bsky.social , www.plasmids.eu and @vdrc-flies.bsky.social. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #CRISPR #geneediting #Drosophila 🧪🧬✂️🔬🪰 Summary 🧵 below.

Online Now: Why m⁶A? An RNA surveillance model Online now:

This is MRC - what a nightmare!

Excited to share our latest preprint: "SWARM: A Single-Molecule Workflow for High-Precision Profiling of RNA Modifications" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Led by Stefan Prodic #RNA #Epitranscriptomics #Nanopore 1/6

Just out @natrevimmunol.nature.com RNA-binding proteins and ribonucleoproteins as determinants of immunity www.nature.com/articles/s41... gives our perspective on this growing area of research. Special thanks to the editor Alexandra, for streamlining the manuscript.

new paper from the Lai lab! Renfu Shang performs careful mechanistic dissection of miRNA cluster assistance and reveals many insights and surprises to this enigmatic regulatory strategy that gives suboptimal miRNAs a boost. if you love Northerns, you'll ♥️ this! 🧬 genesdev.cshlp.org/content/earl...

A new study in Nature Communications has challenged 50-year-old dogma by revealing that vaccinia virus mRNAs with 5'-poly(A) leaders lack the 5' m7G caps. This unexpected finding reshapes our understanding of poxvirus RNA polymerase function and viral gene expression. More: rdcu.be/eXksT

Clever new method for assembling DNA oligos into larger sequences without the need for unique overlap sequences. Can't wait for those 'this sequence is too complex' rejection messages from DNA suppliers to become a thing of the past. 🧬🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

RNA in Davos - everybody seems to know hence the low turnaround to excellent displays by Tom Cech and Victor Ambros.

Discuss #RNA 3' ends and their regulation at the EMBO Workshop "RNA 3' ends and beyond" in #Oxford, United Kingdom, 7–11 September 2026. Deadline: 4 May 2026 https://meetings.embo.org/event/26-rna3#RNA#Oxford#EMBORNA3EndsBeyond #RNAsky #LifeSciences #meeting #EMBOevents 🧪

Very nice paper showing how a virus induces aggressive behaviour in the host. www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Your gut has a sex, and it matters! 🔥 In females, the ovary sends a relaxin hormone signal to enteric neurons, switching on gut enlargement and increased feeding after mating. So excited my postdoc work is finally out as a preprint 🥳 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Not the times we dreamt off requiring a FARADAY BAG FOR PHONES and your car key.

Excited to share our first publication of the year @mcf-uom.bsky.social . Here is a very detailed protocol how to do band-shift assays thanks to @davidmcquarrie.bsky.social and for the invitation @kifla.bsky.social bio-protocol.org/en/bpdetail?...

New work from @miyapan.bsky.social and our team, bringing ant, bee, and wasp labs together. @chuanxinyu.bsky.social shows that the ANTSR locus we discovered in ants has determined sex for 150+ My across bees and stinging wasps 🐜🐝, despite virtually no sequence conservation 😮 doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Life before getting stuck at the junction. Nice paper from @karlaneugebauer.bsky.social lab about roles of EJC components in splicing. genesdev.cshlp.org/content/40/1...

Interesting insights into m6A complex assembly pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41481436/

Not that long ago, in vivo mouse enhancer design was a dream. Today, it's a reality! Using transfer deep learning to design de novo synthetic embryonic enhancers active in the heart, limb, and CNS. Great collab with @alex-stark.bsky.social lab! @ucibiosci.bsky.social @impvienna.bsky.social

Happy to share another story by Annesha Ghosh. Here, we show that inhibition of the mRNA cap methyltransferase CMTR-1 activates a protective immune response via the GATA transcription factor ELT-2. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Glad to see @davidmcquarrie.bsky.social paper #genetics showing that core promoters of Drosophila "prostata" genes evolve fast which can leading to allelic dominance.

Good to be true?

Selective vulnerability of certain cell types to loss of dosage compensation. Post-embryonically, most tissues can do without it - except for a subset of adult progenitors. Congrats Océane, Bruno and Lucie!

A high-resolution atlas of the brain predicts lineage and birth order underlying neuronal identity: Cell Genomics www.cell.com/cell-genomic... Follow-up paper on sex, online in the New year

Doing CRISPR - check out our PlatinumCRISPr upgrade thanks to @roliarnold.bsky.social and @ihaussmann.bsky.social platinum-crispr.bham.ac.uk

Rapid promoter evolution of male accessory gland genes is accompanied by divergent expression in closely related Drosophila species #Drosophila

Vaults. They are cell biology's greatest puzzle! This preprint from Martin Beck's lab shows them docked on ER membranes with a ribosome inside. What on earth is going on there?? #CellBiology #WTFology www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🎉Our new paper out: the 6th update of MODOMICS, marking 20 years of our RNA 🧬modification database. Largest update so far, including >48,000 human RNAs with modification sites, collaboration with Sci-ModoM & Human RNome Project. NAR 2025 doi: 10.1093/nar/gkaf1284 #RNA #Epitranscriptomics #Databases

Genetic evaluation of CRISPR-Cas9 off-target effects from deleterious mutations on Drosophila male single X chromosome #Drosophila

Elegant way to test for CRISPR-Cas9 off targets thanks to @weibian.bsky.social @davidmcquarrie.bsky.social @roliarnold.bsky.social @ihaussmann.bsky.social but there seems very little. At least to say CRISPR-Cas9 is safe for flies rdcu.be/eUyma

Complementary expression rather than specialised function for ribosomal paralogs - very interesting finding!