Peter Ly

differential contribution of H3K9 methyltransferases to boundaries at satellites

A new and fascinating story from @bencarty.bsky.social and the group, with crucial help from the teams of @naltemose.bsky.social, Simona Giunta, and @dfachinetti.bsky.social. Many thanks to all for a fantastic collaboration.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

53BP1-RIF1 and DNA-PKcs show distinct genetic interactions with diverse chromosomal break repair outcomes - Nature Communications DNA double strand breaks can be repaired by several pathways leading to different genetic outcomes. Here, the authors define the interplay between the DNA damage response factors 53BP1-RIF1 and core n...

New study from the lab on genetic relationship between 53BP1-RIF1 and DNA-PKcs on DSB repair outcomes. Led by PhD student @kaelamakins.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Engineered chromatin readers track damaged chromatin dynamics in live cells and animals - Nature Communications DNA damage threatens genome stability, but its dynamics in living systems remain difficult to track. Here, the authors engineer MCPH1-based protein probes that specifically recognize γH2AX, enabling r...

Check out this beautiful paper by @richardcsilva.bsky.social et al., out now in @natcomms.nature.com. Great new DSB sensors to track DNA break formation and repair in real-time
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Intracellular competition shapes plasmid population dynamics From populations of multicellular organisms to selfish genetic elements, conflicts between levels of biological organization are central to evolution. Plasmids are extrachromosomal, self-replicating g...

Hot off the press! Our latest paper led by @fernpizza.bsky.social, understanding how plasmids evolve inside cells. These small, self-replicating DNA circles live inside bacteria and carry antibiotic resistance genes, but also compete with one another to replicate. 1/
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Repair of DNA double-strand breaks leaves heritable impairment to genome function Upon DNA breakage, a genomic locus undergoes alterations in three-dimensional chromatin architecture to facilitate signaling and repair. Although cells possess mechanisms to repair damaged DNA, it is ...

𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗹𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗗𝗡𝗔 𝗱𝗮𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗲?Excited to share our new study “Repair of DNA double-strand breaks leaves heritable impairment to genome function”, revealing DNA repair’s hidden cost, out now @science.org tinyurl.com/5n6zw3ye. Led by @sbantele.bsky.social and Jiri Lukas.🧵👇1/n

Well deserved. Congrats Abby!

NUDT5 regulates purine metabolism and thiopurine sensitivity by interacting with PPAT Cells generate purine nucleotides through de novo purine biosynthesis (DNPB) and purine salvage. Purine salvage represses DNPB to prevent excessive purine nucleotide synthesis through mechanisms that ...

1/New paper from Zheng Wu, Phong Nguyen et al. @cri-utsw.bsky.social shows how cells balance the two pathways that produce purine nucleotides: de novo purine biosynthesis (DNPB) and purine salvage. The surprising mechanism involves NUDT5, a Nudix hydrolase

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

We thank Evi Soutoglou and @rubenvanboxtel.bsky.social for sharing their exciting data with the GIIN community yesterday!
Our next webinar is on December 2nd, featuring @peterlylab.bsky.social and @alebrambati.bsky.social. Do not miss it!
Sign up for updates: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Required reading for cell biologists to get a sense of basic statistical principles!

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

6 years ago, Lizz took a leap of faith by moving across the country to join our new and empty lab as a research tech. She then became our 1st grad student, playing a major role in shaping our research directions and lab culture. Today she defended her PhD, and I couldn’t be more proud.

My team is recruiting a Study Engineer (IE) with experience in mammalian cell culture - ideally human iPSCs - to work on a project exploring the role of aneuploidy and centromere regulation in neuroblastoma initiation and progression.
info and application here
institut-curie.org/job/study-en....

Non-cell-autonomous mechanisms of tumor initiation and relapse by chromosomal instability Chromosomal instability (CIN) is a hallmark of cancer, and a primary cause of genetic heterogeneity in tumors. Depending on the degree of CIN and the affected tissue, CIN can promote or suppress tumor...

Ever wondered how chromosomal instability (CIN) influences tumorigenesis? And how does it contribute to shaping the tumor microenvironment?
In our latest preprint, we used the CiMKi model to induce and monitor skin tumors across five levels of CIN

tinyurl.com/52tuk88z

Here's what we find (1/5):

A versatile cohesion manipulation system probes female reproductive age-related egg aneuploidy - Nature Aging To study pathways that lead to aneuploidy during aging, the authors provide a system that enables cohesion protein depletion in mouse oocytes, mimicking effects that occur during aging. They uncover a...

We built a targeted protein degradation–based system to mimic reproductive age-related aneuploidy in young eggs - revealing how chromosome errors associated with female infertility arise with age. 🧬✨
With @jiyeonleem.bsky.social and our team at Yale MCDB.

Read: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Among the anti-recombinases, FIGNL1 rules them all. So much that inactivating it brings BRCA2-deficient cells to life. Who is responsible for RAD51 loading without BRCA2/FIGNL1, check out the paper to find out! Great collaboration with @raychaudhurilab.bsky.social

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Human RPA is an essential telomerase processivity factor for maintaining telomeres Telomerase counteracts telomere shortening by repeatedly adding DNA repeats to chromosome ends. We identified the replication protein A (RPA) heterotrimer as a telomerase processivity factor critical ...

Our paper in Science is out! @souravagrawal.bsky.social, @rlynn.bsky.social, @susvirkar.bsky.social, and the rest of the team show human RPA is a telomerase processivity factor essential for telomere maintenance. This reshapes our thinking about telomerase regulation. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

FIGNL1 inhibits homologous recombination in BRCA2 deficient cells by dissociating RAD51 filaments Homologous recombination (HR) deficiency upon Breast Cancer Gene 2 (BRCA2) loss arises from defects in the formation of RAD51 nucleoprotein filaments. We demonstrate that loss of the anti-recombinase ...

Want to know how homologous recombination defects are caused upon loss of BRCA2? Check out our recent efforts in uncovering this phenomenon just out in Science!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

📢 Excited to share that our study has just been published in Nature Communications! We uncover how CRL4-DCAF12 regulates the cellular levels of MCMBP, a chaperone essential for assembling nascent MCM2-7 complexes, to ensure accurate and error-free genome duplication.

Two back-to-back stories on mitosis led by my incredible postdoc @krunovuk.bsky.social at @institutrb.bsky.social, in which we challenge the gliding model of CENP-E-driven chromosome congression! Today in @natcomms.nature.com
doi.org/10.1038/s414...
doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Spotlight: Benamozig and Shoshani @weizmanninstitute.bsky.social highlight work from the Gorbsky Lab @gorbskylab.bsky.social (rupress.org/jcb/article/...), which shows how chromosomal instability can rapidly cause #aneuploidy. rupress.org/jcb/article/...

#StemCells

Our collab w. V Goel, @nicholas-aboreden.bsky.social , J Jusuf, G Blobel, L Mirny, @irate-physicist.bsky.social out in @natsmb.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Was co-submitted with @allanaschooley.bsky.social @jobdekker.bsky.social whose paper should also come out soon

Brief thread 👇

Thrilled to announce the launch of my lab
@cri-utsw.bsky.social at UTSW this January!

We will explore how cells sense and respond to mechanical forces, focusing on membrane mechanics to reveal how tension and signaling work together to shape cell behavior.

Perspective from Richard McIntosh describing the history of research on #microtubule polymerization in terms of the ideas, technologies, and observations that have emerged as countless researchers have studied the dynamics of these essential cytoskeletal polymers. rupress.org/jcb/article/...

One week left to apply!

Distinct ATRX functions cooperate with 9-1-1 and CST complexes to safeguard replication and telomere integrity Mutations in the ATRX chromatin remodeller predispose to a developmental genetic disorder and cancer, but how it safeguards genome and telomere stability remains unresolved. Here, we uncover critical ...

🧬 Preprint alert!

"Distinct ATRX functions cooperate with 9-1-1 and CST complexes to safeguard replication and telomere integrity."

Read the manuscript here 👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We present multi-immersion Oblique Plane microscope (miOPM), a light-sheet platform that can be adapted to a wide range of applications, from sensitive live cell imaging to imaging organs and cleared tissues.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A comprehensive genetic catalog of human double-strand break repair The analysis of DNA sequence outcomes provides molecular insights into double-strand break (DSB) repair mechanisms. Using parallel in-pool profiling of Cas9-induced insertions and deletions (indels) w...

Kickstarting our Bluesky🦋 account with great news!
Our REPAIRome study finally out today in
@science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Check out this new Levine-Lampson collaboration, led by the talented Hyuk-Joon Jeon.

We explored the consequences of inheriting long telomeres from dad and short telomeres from mom. Or the reciprocal. Turns out, parent-of-origin matters (in mice, at least).

authors.elsevier.com/c/1loW-3QW8S...

Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University - Nashville, Tennessee job with Vanderbilt University School of Medicine | 12843515 Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine—Basic Sciences

Less than two weeks left to apply for our TWO tenure track assistant professor positions in Department of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Basic Sciences

nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

Targeting the cell-cycle machinery for cancer therapy The cell cycle is governed by tightly regulated checkpoints and proteogenomic oscillations that ensure genomic fidelity during cell proliferation. Dysregulation of the cell cycle can drive oncogenic transformation, and this positions it as a pivotal target in precision oncology. Recent advances reveal how proteomic and post-translational dynamics orchestrate cell-cycle phase transitions that are aberrantly disrupted in cancers. Therapeutic targeting of the CDK4/6 represents a cornerstone of cancer therapy, but resistance mechanisms limit its clinical efficacy. Emerging strategies such as targeted protein degradation, synthetic lethality, and combination immunotherapies further expand the therapeutic window. These innovations, coupled with biomarker-driven precision medicine, exploit cell-cycle vulnerabilities and transform them into an active tool to combat human cancers more effectively. This review highlights emerging mechanistic insights underlying tumorigenesis driven by an aberrant cell cycle and proposes potential therapeutics aimed at cell-cycle machinery-relevant targets.

Targeting the cell-cycle machinery for cancer therapy

YouTube video by Stowers Institute for Medical Research How Stowers Scientists Found the DNA Site Where Robertsonian Chromosomes Fuse

🚂 The T2T train keeps rolling: "The formation and propagation of human Robertsonian chromosomes" with Gerton and Garrison labs is out! What's a Robertsonian chromosome? Let Jen tell you herself in this great video, or read our paper: [1/3]
📺 youtu.be/JmlY5omxQVc
📄 www.nature.com/articles/s41...