Nikos Konstantinides

50 years ago, King & Wilson published a foundational paper that underlies the cis-regulatory paradigm (CRP) of #DevoEvo #EvoDevo, i.e., that *almost* all morphological evolution is driven by mutations in regulatory elements, rather than proteins, and it all arose from simple misunderstanding 🧪 🧵

A developmental condensin I complex assists the Paramecium PiggyMac domesticated transposase during programmed DNA elimination Prokaryotes and eukaryotes use diverse strategies to cope with invading mobile genetic elements, including programmed DNA elimination (PDE). In the ciliate Paramecium , elimination of transposable ele...

🚨 Excited to share my first preprint on bioRxiv! 🎓 We uncover a non-canonical role of condensin I, beyond chromosome segregation 🧬
This work is the fruit of a collaboration between the @sandraduharcourt.bsky.social & @betermieri2bc.bsky.social labs!
➡️ doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Distinct mechanisms decommission redundant enhancers to facilitate phenotypic evolution The evolutionary loss of morphological traits is often driven by changes in gene regulation. Many developmental genes are controlled by multiple, redundant enhancers, raising the question of how robus...

Check out our new preprint on the evolution of enhancer loss. Turns out there are 50 ways to lose a function. We found four of them.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

AI-generated image of a lightsaber-wielding figure conquering Portugal.

Preparations for the next JEDI meeting are underway! The upcoming Junior European #Drosophila Investigator / #NewPI meeting is planned for Portugal in June. Final dates and additional details will be announced soon - stay tuned for updates!​

Spread the word! There is a professor position opening at our University @upcite.bsky.social. There are several possible (great) labs to join, but if you are interested in DNA methylation and epigenetics in mammals, don't hesitate to contact me directly!

BMP signaling-dependent dorsal-to-ventral gradient of PAX3/7 transcriptional activity revealed by the P34::tk::LacZ reporter. Left: expression patterns of neural progenitor (NP) and interneuron (IN) TF markers in the developing spinal cord. Right: Immunostaining for β-galactosidase (β-gal; red/grey), GFP (blue/grey) and either OLIG3 (green/grey) or pSMAD1/5/9 (green/grey) on transverse sections of E9.0 (bottom) and E9.5 (top) P34::tk::LacZ; Pax3+/GFP spinal cords at brachial level. Black and white panels show magnified views of the boxed region.

How do pleiotropic TFs generate organized diversity in developing tissues? @spinalorga.bsky.social shows that PAX3 & PAX7 organize #SpinalCord by acting as both repressors & pioneer activators, regulated by #morphogens to ensure precise neural subtype specification @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4qumsla

Luckily, we will always have "inspiration"

On that note, this is a compilation of some signs in Basque/Spanish/English/French

Aabel Aaberg and Zyra Zywiec are celebrating!

New preprint led by the brilliant @aleksandra-marconi.bsky.social on cichlid brain diversification, fgf8a signalling and regulatory divergence with TEs on the mix! All part of a wonderful collaboration with @ebablab.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

@camzoology.bsky.social

In Donostia, teaching myself some Basque

A histone methyltransferase-independent function of PRC2 controls small RNA dynamics during programmed DNA elimination in Paramecium Abstract. To limit transposable element (TE) mobilization, most eukaryotes have evolved small RNAs to silence TE activity via homology-dependent mechanisms

Our latest paper on a histone methyltransferase-independent function of PRC2 controlling small RNA dynamics during programmed DNA elimination in Paramecium is now published in #NAR.
#RNAbiology #TEsky #smallRNAs #PRC2 #DNAelimination
1/5
academic.oup.com/nar/article-...

Promoter-proximal gatekeepers restrict pleiotropic enhancer inputs to achieve tissue specificity Developmental enhancers are central regulatory elements that can activate multiple genes, yet how they selectively regulate one gene over its neighbours remains unclear. Using the Drosophila twist E3 ...

Ever wondered what drives enhancer-promoter specificity? Why would an enhancer activate one gene rather than another neighboring one?

Check our latest preprint, led by @mmasoura.bsky.social, to find out!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I'm looking to recruit a post-doc to help push forward our growing interests in insect ecotoxicology.
Apply here by Nov 30th!
(thanks for reposting)

career5.successfactors.eu/sfcareer/job...

Male CNS Connectome A team of researchers has unveiled the complete connectome of a male fruit fly central nervous system —a seamless map of all the neurons in the brain and nerve cord of a single male fruit fly and the ...

Exciting news for #drosophila #connectomics and #neuroscience enthusiasts: the Drosophila male central nervous system connectome is now live for exploration. Find out more at the landing page hosted by our Janelia FlyEM collaborators www.janelia.org/project-team....

Latest from ours: www.cell.com/cell-reports...

This is two stories in one: a case study/cautionary tale on developing genetic tools in new organisms, and the first hint at a gene regulatory network for choanoflagellate multicellular development (which turn out to involve a Hippo/YAP/ECM loop!) A 🧵

Here it is! Postdoctoral position to identify the progenitors sensory organs in the regenerating legs of Parhyale

apply here: www.averof-lab.org/pages/tracman

1/3

C. elegans is a real animal and we set out to understand how it comes to have its distinctive biogeography. Its ancestral center of diversity is in the higher elevation forests of Hawaii. Its closest relatives are spread across east Asia. Did they travel from Asia? [Preprint 🧵]

Morphogen and juxtacrine signalling dynamically integrate to specify cell fates with single-cell resolution Morphogen gradients guide tissue patterning but do not act in isolation. How they integrate with other signalling modalities, like juxtacrine signalling, and how these integrations influence pattern r...

Interested in morphogens and how they can robustly specifiy different cell types with single-cell resolution?
Check out this preprint combining experiments and modelling by our colleagues and partners in crime @ucl-cdb.bsky.social:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

donald duck is laying in bed with a blue blanket ALT: donald duck is laying in bed with a blue blanket

That feeling when you wake up and realize that the POTUS "disparaged renewable energy sources and challenged the scientific consensus on climate change"

🔔 Applications are open for the #FKNE Online Training Series for New PIs in Europe!

Launching 11 November 2025, this 6-week course helps new PIs in Europe strengthen leadership, communication and lab management skills. 🧠

🗓️ Deadline: 15 October 2025
Apply now 👉 https://loom.ly/Ceus8Ys

The #FKNE Leadership Training Course for the Starting PI is open! Don't miss the opportunity to enhance your abilities and learn to tackle challenging moments as an early group leader! Application deadline: 15 Oct. 2025
fenskavlinetwork.org/fkne-leaders...
@fens.org

Epigenetic relay: Polycomb-directed DNA methylation in mammalian development In mammals, repression of germline-specific gene expression is essential for preserving somatic cell identity and preventing disease. Germline gene silencing is often dependent on the presence of prom...

Very excited to share an excellent review from @teresa-urli.bsky.social, published one week before her PhD defense! We did a deep dive into the fascinating biology of the variant Polycomb complex, PRC1.6 (1/5) journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

In Greece, the words "antifascist" and "in solidarity" are used as an insult by a large fraction of the population and that's all you need to know about contemporary Greece

That's not possible - at some point nature (not the journal) has to read some textbooks and stick to them...

🧠🦈Excited to present our latest work🧠🦈Interested in brain evolution? And shark embryos? Then read on… Our work sheds light on the deep origins of our brain’s most complex regions.

At long last, the version of record of our paper on the #Platynereis #connectome

"Whole-body connectome of a segmented annelid larva" is out.

Explore the rich online presentation with all the videos, figures and source data here:

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.97964

@eLife
@biology […]

At FKNE @fkne-scholars.bsky.social we believe in community empowerment and skill building. The registration for the Leadership and Soft Skill Training Series for the starting PIs is now open (deadline October 15)! Apply and network! 💪🏻

ALT text: A UMAP representation of a single cell RNAseq dataset from the Drosophila ventral nerve cord as well as images of the Drosophila nerve cord connectome and different stages of fly development.

Neuronal diversity is written in transcriptional codes 🧬. But what is the logic of these codes that define cell types and wiring patterns?
To find out we built a #scRNAseq developmental atlas of the Drosophila nerve cord and linked it to the #connectome 🪰🧠
#preprint thread ⬇️1/8

Intersecting experimental evolution and CRISPR screens to identify novel toxin resistance loci Understanding toxin resistance in insects is key to appreciate niche adaptations and for pest management, but remains challenging due to complex genetics. To investigate how Drosophila sechellia evolv...

New preprint, taking our lab into ecotoxicology, with a nifty combination of experimental evolution and CRISPR screening in cells, to help unravel the still-mysterious resistance of Drosophila sechellia to its favorite fruit: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...