Mrinmoy

Defended my PhD last week! It’s been an incredible journey filled with challenges and exciting science. I'm deeply grateful to everyone who was part of it -especially @metorrespadilla.bsky.social for taking me on this ride. #PhDone 🎓

#LeibnizPreis für exzellente Forschung in der #Epigenetik: Welche Mechanismen liegen der Zellplastizität und Reprogrammierung von Zellen zugrunde? An der Antwort, die zukünftig bei der Heilung von Organen helfen könnte, arbeitet Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla @metorrespadilla.bsky.social. Gratulation!

We’re proud to announce #OvoLabs, co-founded by Melina
@schuhlab.bsky.social, Agata Zielinska, and Oleksandr Yagensky. Building on decades of meiosis research, Ovo Labs aims to pioneer novel therapies to overcome the challenges of age-related infertility.

The establishment of nuclear organization in mouse embryos is orchestrated by multiple epigenetic pathways In vivo screening in mouse embryos provides insights into the functional interplay between chromatin and the nuclear envelope in the establishment of lamina-associated domains, the earliest feature of nuclear organization following fertilization.

Now online! The establishment of nuclear organization in mouse embryos is orchestrated by multiple epigenetic pathways

Thank you @anajaneva.bsky.social for sharing our work. You and IES are deeply missed! ❤️

How DNA Self-Organizes in the Early Embryo

How DNA Self-Organizes in the Early Embryo 🧬

The new insights challenge the classical model of genome organization & could lead to new disease treatments.

👉 t1p.de/25q7l

@metorrespadilla.bsky.social @palmrinmoy.bsky.social @epihmgu.bsky.social @lmumuenchen.bsky.social

Here is-🥳🥳😇 tremendous effort by @palmrinmoy.bsky.social brilliantly supported by @tamas-schauer.bsky.social &super help by federico,iliya,tsune,adam,@mamartirenom.bsky.social

Very happy to see this come to fruition- Look forward to feedback from colleagues !

More 👉 www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Read the press release on our work from
@www.helmholtz-munich.de here:
www.helmholtz-munich.de/en/epigeneti...

It has been an incredible journey in the @epihmgu.bsky.social community, with lots of discussions and advice. Also thanks to everyone who provided plasmid constructs for designing the screen and help with sequencing!

Grateful to all co-authors and collaborators who contributed their expertise, especially during the revisions! 🙏Thank you @mamartirenom.bsky.social for your guidance with the meta-analysis of the huge dataset.

🧬 This work is the result of a lot of hard work over 5 years of my PhD.

Huge thanks to @metorrespadilla.bsky.social for trusting me with this challenging opportunity. Special mention to my bioinformatics buddy and plot wizard @tamas-schauer.bsky.social

n/n✨ In summary:
LAD formation is epigenetically regulated, developmentally staged, and remarkably resilient!

9/n: Successful zygotic genome activation (ZGA) is typically associated with correct nuclear-lamina organization...

...but ZGA can occur even when lamina contacts are perturbed, especially at the resilient 2-cell stage.

8/n: Early embryos lack the constitutive heterochromatin pathway, including chromatin-compacting histone variants.

This absence enables the non-canonical embryonic chromatin to co-exist with a unique and dynamic LAD organization not seen in differentiated cells.

7/n: We found that compartment boundaries constrain LAD disruption and serve as scaffolding cues for organizing the genome.

LADs often spread only within B compartments, and LAD inversions follow compartment boundaries.

6/n:🧬 Even if LADs are disrupted in zygotes, embryos can rebuild LAD architecture at the 2-cell stage.

BUT:
Disruption at the 2-cell stage impairs preimplantation development.

5/n:🎯 H3K4me3 contributes to the robustness of nuclear organization.

HP1 proteins anchor broad H3K9me3 domains to the lamina. But H3K4me3 acts as a barrier, a chromatin boundary that blocks excessive lamina binding.
This balance is critical for correct nuclear organization.

4/n: We found that maternal inheritance of H3K27me3, not de novo methylation, is key to LAD formation in zygotes.

🎯 LAD establishment is maternally bookmarked and regulated through a PRC2–lamina antagonism.

3/n:💡 We discovered that chromatin pathways, not structural components, are the primary regulators of LADs in early embryos.

The interplay of H3K9, H3K27, and H3K4 methylation is a major player in shaping genome-lamina contacts.

2/n: Using in vivo perturbation screening + simultaneous LAD mapping, we built a toolbox to explore how chromatin dynamics guide nuclear organization post-fertilization.

🧬 A glimpse into the genome's first "address book" at the beginning of life.

1/n: We reveal how chromatin pathways shape genome-lamina interactions in early mouse embryos, and what happens when they go wrong.

How does the genome find its place in the 3D space of the nucleus after fertilization?

Out now @cellcellpress.bsky.social:
cell.com/cell/fulltext/…

👇 A thread 👇

In this study, Hermant et al. describe the evolution of the retrotransposon MERVL and its cis-regulatory transcription factor binding motifs, highlighting the phyloregulatory adaptation at play during early embryogenesis.

Learn more here:
➡️ tinyurl.com/gd352270

🚨New paper alert!

RIF1 as a key in vivo regulator of replication timing consolidation during early mammalian development.

Another great collaborative effort from my time in the @metorrespadilla.bsky.social lab. Excited to see this one out!!

we've put a Review together 👇

Just came out at www.nature.com/articles/s41...

hoping it is useful for those in the field but also for those not in the field who would like an overview on chromatin/epigenetics/replication/nuclear organisation in early embryos

Enjoy :) - feedback welcome

Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla - Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz-Preisträgerin 2025 im Portrait Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

#LeibnizPrize 2025: Celebrating Excellence!🎉

👏Yesterday, Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla officially received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize from the German Research Foundation (DFG)!
👉 t1p.de/s6uma

🎥Watch her portrait:
t1p.de/a30vo

@metorrespadilla.bsky.social @dfg.de
#LeibnizPreis

If you are interested in antigenic variation, you may have wondered how parasites ‘select’ which antigen to express next.

Our manuscript, just published in Nature, provides some answers!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@lmumuenchen.bsky.social
@erc.europa.eu a.eu
@nature.com

🚨New Paper Alert!

Check the news about the sucessful research led by our Director at IES here: 👉 t1p.de/d87p5.

Original paper at @genesdev.bsky.social: genesdev.cshlp.org/content/earl...

Congrats to Clara Hermant, Michel Mourra-Diaz, @marliesoomen.bsky.social, Mrinmoy Pal & rest of authors!

SRF: A New Regulator of Retrotransposons and Genes in Early Embryonic Development

SRF: A New Regulator of Retrotransposons and Early Embryonic Genes🧬

A team led by Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla, #HelmholtzMunich, has uncovered a key player in early embryonic development: SRF.

👉 t1p.de/d87p5

@metorrespadilla.bsky.social @epihmgu.bsky.social
#EmbryonicDevelopment #Epigenetics

Very excited to share our paper on Gene and Transposable Element expression in mammalian preimplantation development, online today! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
A short thread to highlight some of our findings 🧵