Peter Wang

My first first-author paper is out!🎉
Here we propose a model where a silencing complex, PIWI*, assembles on target RNAs to recruit effectors and shut down transposon activity.
Huge thanks to the Brennecke and Plaschka labs, especially Julius and Clemens, and all co-authors!

Congrats!!

Lysosomal RNA profiling reveals targeting of specific types of RNAs for degradation Autophagy targets a wide variety of substrates for degradation within lysosomes. While lysosomes are known to possess RNase activity, the role of lysosomal RNA degradation in post-transcriptional gene...

Check out the latest work from Jordan Ray (@jordanray.bsky.social), a collaboration between our lab and David Sabatini’s lab. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... (1/2)

Congrats Jimmy!

An ancient and essential miRNA family controls cellular interaction pathways in C. elegans A microRNA that arose at the origin of eumetazoans regulates cell adhesion and signaling in C. elegans through conserved targets.

Our work on the function of miR-51/miR-100 is out! miR-100 is widely conserved across eumetazoans but its function has been mysterious. Emilio Santillán found in worms it regulates signaling and extracellular matrix genes, some of which seem to be conserved targets! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Argonautes are coming :-) ... soon at @imgprague.bsky.social ... finishing preparations. Still missing a few things like drums, guitar, badges, beer ... but it's under control. I think. I hope. :-))
#argonautes2025

Why would anyone want to be a scientist? It is difficult to fathom why anyone intelligent enough to be a scientist would actually choose to be one. Doing good science requires the utmost exertion of body, mind and spirit, yet is consistently...

"why [would] anyone intelligent enough to be a scientist choose to be one [given] the unfavorable risk-to-reward ratio "?

One of the most intelligent people you could meet offers some answers: having ideas, watching them develop, and sharing them journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

PAL-AI reveals genetic determinants that control poly(A)-tail length during oocyte maturation, with relevance to human fertility - Nature Communications Gene regulation in oocytes relies heavily on poly(A) tail-length changes. Here, the authors develop PAL-AI, a neural network model that predicts tail-length changes, identifies regulatory motifs, and ...

Check out the latest study from our lab, led by Coffee Xiang (@coffeebond007.bsky.social) www.nature.com/articles/s41... (1/2)

Global inhibition of deadenylation stabilizes the transcriptome in mitotic cells In the presence of cell division errors, mammalian cells can pause in mitosis for tens of hours with little to no transcription, while still requiring continued translation for viability. These unique...

Beautiful work by Katya Khalizeva from @iaincheeseman.bsky.social lab, uncovering a surprising feedback loop to globally suppress mRNA decay during mitosis! This helps explain how cells maintain their transcriptome during a mitotic arrest without new transcription!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Global inhibition of deadenylation stabilizes the transcriptome in mitotic cells In the presence of cell division errors, mammalian cells can pause in mitosis for tens of hours with little to no transcription, while still requiring continued translation for viability. These unique...

New preprint! We solve a mystery you didn't know existed. Mitotic cells lack new transcription but require ongoing translation. Interphase mRNA half life is only 2-4 hrs. So how do cells arrest in mitosis for hours without depleting their transcriptomes?

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

Functional relevance of CASP16 nucleic acid predictions as evaluated by structure providers Accurate biomolecular structure prediction enables the prediction of mutational effects, the speculation of function based on predicted structural homology, the analysis of ligand binding modes, exper...

Nucleic acid structural biologists expose that many CASP16 predictions, even ones obtaining high scores by CASP metrics, are inaccurate in the most functionally relevant regions! Read more insights on functionally relevant features by the expert structure determiners (doi.org/10.1101/2025...).

AlphaFold is amazing but gives you static structures 🧊

In a fantastic teamwork, @mcagiada.bsky.social and @emilthomasen.bsky.social developed AF2χ to generate conformational ensembles representing side-chain dynamics using AF2 💃

Code: github.com/KULL-Centre/...
Colab: github.com/matteo-cagia...

Don’t miss this Q&A with Dr. Michelle Frank (@michelle-frank.bsky.social), an awesome postdoc in our lab!

AGO2 slicing of a domesticated retrotransposon is necessary for normal vasculature development Argonaute (AGO) mediated slicing of RNA, also known as RNAi, is a highly conserved phenomenon that is evolutionarily linked to the repression of transposons and other repeats. Although RNAi is no long...

What was that you said? You are looking for new #RNA research to read in the weekend?

You are in luck!

📣 📣 Check out the new preprint from our lab!!!! 📣 📣

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

A miniature CRISPR-Cas10 enzyme confers immunity by an inverse signaling pathway Microbial and viral co-evolution has created immunity mechanisms involving oligonucleotide signaling that share mechanistic features with human anti-viral systems. In these pathways, including CBASS a...

Preprint alert! ✨ In this project that I co-led with @benadler.bsky.social, we show that a miniature CRISPR-Cas10-like enzyme, mCpol, uses a novel inverse signaling mechanism to prevent the spread of viruses that attempt immune evasion by depleting host cyclic nucleotides.

Check it out:

Congrats Jimmy and team! Excited to see this work out

Congrats Leo and all!

Check out the latest study from our lab, led by @mhall98.bsky.social :
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... (1/2)

Check out the latest work led by @mhall98.bsky.social in the Bartel lab! Matt solved a long-standing mystery about miRNA targeting, and drove the story to impressive mechanistic detail. More information below:

ARGONAUTES 2025
The grassroot meeting of Argonaute afficionados is looking for afficionados! Full coverage of Argonautes from prokaryotes to #RNAi, #piRNA and #microRNA Join us in Prague at @imgprague.bsky.social during 27-30/8, 2025. Registration, program and more info here:
argonautes.img.cas.cz

Today we're thrilled to announce our 2024 #HannaGrayFellows! Please join us in welcoming and celebrating these outstanding early career scientists!

EDUCATION CORNER: Molecule of the Month: Celebrating  25 Years of Storytelling and Announcing New Beginnings After a remarkable 300 columns, David Goodsell has retired from the Molecule of the Month series.  Janet Iwasa will be continuing the series for PDB-101.

After a remarkable 300 columns, David Goodsell has retired from the Molecule of the Month. We are very grateful for his service.
@jiwasa.bsky.social will continue the series, beginning with January's article on Assembly Line Polyketide Synthases
Details: cdn.rcsb.org/rcsb-pd...

The structural basis for RNA slicing by human Argonaute2 Mohamed et al. report the cryoelectron microscopy structure of human AGO2 with fully paired guide RNA. Their analysis reveals the structural basis for the slicing activity that drives RNAi, showing that the slicing-competent conformation is achieved by domain movements and RNA-protein contacts distinct from those of conformational intermediates and prokaryotic homologs.

In this updated paper, we further described conformational changes required for catalysis, and a network of interactions near the active site that support slicing. Read more here: tinyurl.com/AGO2-slicing

More than five years ago, we charted our plans to unravel the biochemistry and biophysics of the AGO2 enzyme, and the eventual goal of solving its catalytic structure. It has been a great journey ever since, and we are excited to finally share these results.

Happy 2025! Excited to finally share our published slicing structure of human AGO2, the catalytic structure for RNAi by siRNAs and miRNAs. This was an amazing collab effort between @voslab.org and @bartellab.bsky.social with @amohamed98.bsky.social

Congrats!

Bartel Lab bids a fond farewell to our incredible lab manager, Asia Stefano. Wishing you all the best on your new adventures in the Rocky Mountains, Asia—thank you for the amazing time we shared together!