Rita Rebollo

Hi! Florence Hommais, @nicolasparisot.bsky.social , and I are looking for a postdoctoral candidate to investigate the molecular dialogue between three weevil species and their endosymbiotic bacteria #symbiosis! Please see the #post-doc offer for more information. #SymbioSky #Bioinformatics

A cartoon/ digital drawing summarising the findings of the paper "Defensive fungal symbiosis on insect hindlegs" by T. Nishino et al published in 2025. On the top left, a female Megymenum gracilicorne bug shows off symbiotic organs on the hind legs where she carries Ascomycota fungi. These were previously assumed to be Tympanal organs in these bugs but only females had them?; that didnt make a whole lot of sense to the authors...To the right of the bug is a row of eggs lying side by side. The paper shows that the bugs deposit the symbiotic fungi on the egg surface after egg-laying. Next on the image, fungal conidia grow on the egg surface. The eggs are pinkish in colour. A few fungi wear sunglasses like they are body guards. The paper shows that they protect the eggs from Trissolcus brevinotaulus, a parasitoid wasp, that likes to lay its eggs inside the developing bug's eggs. There are two wasps in this cartoon "eyeing" the fungi and looking frustrated. Eggs turn from whitish to pinkish within 10-days because they are reflecting the body colour of the nymph within the eggs.

Had to draw a cartoon for this fascinating finding!
Defensive fungal symbiosis on insect hindlegs: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
#SymbioSky

Epigenetic lockdown of type I interferon sensing and signalling in human pluripotent cells. The Human Silencing Hub (HUSH) complex safeguards genome integrity in human somatic cells by repressing transposable elements and regulating type I interferon (IFN-I) induction. In early development, ...

How do pluripotent stem cells resist harmful interferon responses to safeguard development? Through total epigenetic lockdown of ligands, sensors and effectors of IFN-I. In our preprint, James Holt shares his PhD discoveries on the ground state of immune evasion 😊: www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

Internship position open at INRAE-URGI for 2026, more details available here www.sfbi.fr/emplois/offr...

📣 #OurLastPaper is out! And it's a major breakthrough that we're publishing in @cp-cell.bsky.social l: we've discovered architect bacteria that build complex structures to feed themselves better!
#SymbioSky 1/5

A mosaic of modular variation at a single gene underpins convergent plumage coloration The reshuffling of genomic variation from multiple origins is an important contributor to phenotypic diversification, yet insights into the evolutionary trajectories of this combinatorial process and ...

1/9 New in @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado8005
How does genetic architecture constrain evolutionary trajectories? To address this question, we inferred the genetic architecture of convergent plumage coloration and its evolutionary history in wheatears.

🚀 The next edition of Bioinformatics of Transposable Elements with @valentinapeona.bsky.social & @ritarebollo.bsky.social is just around the corner!

🧬 Jump into the world of #transposons and level up your #bioinformatics skills

⏳ Seats are limited: www.physalia-courses.org/courses-work...

🧑‍🔬 The fête de la science Symbiosis walk was a success! Thank you all the school and families that have shared a bit of their curiosity with us 🪲🦠

Come talk Symbiosis with me! 😍

The cellular mechanics of symbiosis: sensing friend from foe

Dear all, registration for the upcoming EMBO/EMBL Symposium on "the cellular mechanics of symbiosis" is now OPEN 🤩 ! Feel free to register ! www.embl.org/about/info/c...
#EESSymbiosis #ProtistsOnSky #SymbioSky
@hassansalem.bsky.social @berasymbionts.bsky.social @embl.org

Yesterday @ritarebollo.bsky.social brilliantly obtained her Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches in front of a jury composed of L. Teysset, C. Vitte, F. Hommais, N. Nègre, Z. Haichar & N. Kremer. A summary of 20 years of research in 3 labs & 2 countries with a common theme: interactions! 👏

Kicked off a series on #Drosophila TE discovery and naming. The first post covers elements that predate the term "mobile element", and more. artemilin.dev/posts/te_nam...

Transposable elements are vectors of recurrent transgenerational epigenetic inheritance DNA methylation loss at transposable elements (TEs) can affect neighboring genes and be epigenetically inherited in plants, yet the determinants and significance of this additional system of inheritan...

Happy to share the results of a long-haul post-doc project, now online @science.org, aiming at understanding the rules of transgeneration epigenetic inheritance over TEs in plants and its extent and impact in nature. More below!
doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Mais pourquoi faut faire des HDRs? Pourquoiiiiii? 🤢

Hi! We are looking for a PhD to work on the cross talk between transposable elements, insects and intracellular bacteria on the bioinformatics side. The PhD would be supervised by @mariefablet.bsky.social and myself along with @nicolasparisot.bsky.social Deadline December 2025! Please share! #tesky

Quantifying supply and demand in the pea aphid-Buchnera symbiosis reveals the metabolic Achilles’ heels of this interaction Many herbivorous insects feed on unbalanced diets and rely on bacterial endosymbionts to meet all their nutritional needs. This is the case for the pe…

📣 #OurLastPaper is out! A quantitative metabolic model of the obligate #aphid symbiont, #Buchnera aphidicola. This work also provides a model of the life stage-specific provision of nutrients from the bacterium to the host. #SymbioSky
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Dual-transcriptomics on microdissected cells reveals functional specialisation of symbiont-bearing-cells and contrasted responses to nutritional stress in the cereal weevil - Microbiome Background Insects thriving on a nutritionally imbalanced diet often establish long-term relationships with intracellular symbiotic bacteria (endosymbionts), which complement their nutritional needs a...

📣 #OurLastPaper is out! This study explores the functional specialization of the symbiont-bearing organ in the rice weevil.
Using microdissection coupled with dual RNA-seq, we revealed different cell types, each with distinct host-symbiont molecular dialogues. #SymbioSky
doi.org/10.1186/s401...

A little late to share, but still thrilled 🤗!
What started as two independent stories, one in Clermont-Ferrand (@igred.fr) and one in Cambridge (Hannon’s group @cruk-mi.bsky.social ), turned into a joint adventure to decode how Rhino picks its favorite piRNA clusters.
When forces unite…
👇👇👇

New preprint: we advertise DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly eco-evo-archaeo journals. 1/6
#AcademicPublishing #ecoevo #archaeology #EthicalPublishing #SocietyJournals #DiamondOpenAccess
doi.org/10.32942/X24...

A new paper in Nature Ecol & Evol by
@rosafernandez.bsky.social et al. shows a #punctuated burst of genome evolution in #annelids as they transitioned from marine to land and freshwater habitats.

Barbara McClintock portrait

🧬🌽 Happy Transposon Day! 🌽🧬

Today we celebrate the birthday of Barbara McClintock - scientist extraordinaire and discoverer of jumping genes. Still the only woman to have an unshared Nobel Prize in the biomedical sciences #TransposonDay2025

@mirimerenciano.bsky.social @sianalarue.bsky.social et al. review recent discoveries showing that TE activation can be both a cause and a consequence of ageing, emphasizing the importance of studying these genomic elements.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf088

#genome #evolution #TEsky

Join us for a week of hands-on experience in the computational analysis of transposable elements with @valentinapeona.bsky.social & @ritarebollo.bsky.social

Check it out 👇

Now this is really cool! Double-extreme #genome reduction in #endosymbionts from #planthoppers. They go all the way down to ca. 50 kbps!!! 1/2

doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Work by @annamichalik.bsky.social, @sympiotr.bsky.social, and others not here

#SymbioSky

The June cover of Genome Biology and Evolution features the work of @mirimerenciano.bsky.social @sianalarue.bsky.social et al., who explore the relationships between transposable elements and aging in a new Review article.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf088

🖌️ Merenciano et al.

#genome #TEsky

Today sees the close of the REID - IMMUNINV conference (reid2025.sciencesconf.org) at @insa-lyon.fr Many members of @inrae-umr-bf2i.bsky.social were involved in organizing the congress, and some of our PhD and post-doctoral students were able to present their research work brilliantly 👏

Genomic and genetic insights into Mendel’s pea genes - Nature Characterization of the genetic architecture underlying the 7 pairs of contrasting traits studied by Mendel and the over 70 additional agronomic traits in pea (Pisum sativum) reveals their m...

The rest of Mendel's alleles characterized! So, out of 7 traits, 3 caused by TE insertions!!! (though apparently there are two different green alleles, one cause by a TE insertion, but another a promoter deletion allele)

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

Celebrating DNA Day with transposable elements Each year on DNA Day, we celebrate the DNA double helix structure and the Human Genome Project's completion. Here we dive into a fascinating genomic component: transposable elements. Once seen as mere...

go.nature.com/3S27sLp

Interested in the analysis on Transposable elements? 🧬
Have a look at our course with @valentinapeona.bsky.social & @ritarebollo.bsky.social

We'll cover everything from TE biology to de novo library construction, quantification, & transcriptomic analysis.

www.physalia-courses.org/courses-work...

We have a PhD profil open for concours at GAIA doctoral school on #pangenomics. You are M2 student in info or bioinfo ? You want to work in #biodiversity and #graph ? Come to see us!

adum.fr/as/ed/voirpr...