Gavin Woodruff

Collect #NeuralCrest Cells for #SingleCell #RNAseq from any vertebrate.

Our new paper, present an antibody-guided #FACS method to collect NCCs. No trans-genesis or in ovo manipulation required.

Demonstrated in wall #lizard #embryos using #microscopy, #RTqPCR and #scRNAseq.

doi.org/10.1111/ede....

Agouti integrates environmental cues to regulate paternal behaviour - Nature Expression of agouti signalling protein in neurons in the medial preoptic area is increased by group housing and negatively associated with care, and overexpression of Agouti reduces care and enhances...

Why are some males caring toward infants while others are neglectful or abusive? I'm so pleased to share work that my colleagues and I @princeton.edu have just published @nature.com (an explanatory thread to follow!) (1/8)

Bacterial diet influences mutation rate in Pristionchus pacificus Abstract. Mutation is a major force of evolution and its accumulation is suggested to be influenced by environmental and genetic factors in both unicellula

Bacterial diet influences mutation rate in Pristionchus pacificus

academic.oup.com/g3journal/ad...

How does the piRNA pathway solve the self vs. non-self problem? 🧬

Since piRNAs come from single-stranded RNA, how does the cell choose the right ones? For years, "piRNA clusters" were seen as THE privileged source. But are they really special and earmarked for biogenesis? (1/19)

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Cryptic species are widespread across vertebrates Abstract. Many species delimited by morphological data contain two or more species that are distinct based on molecular data (i.e. cryptic species). Crypti

A very interesting and well-executed study.

royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Evolutionarily conserved behavioral plasticity enables context-dependent mating in C. elegans Susoy and Samuel describe a new context-dependent behavior in C. elegans. When cultured on solid surfaces and in liquid, C. elegans males adopt different behavioral strategies—parallel and spiral mati...

Evolutionarily conserved behavioral plasticity enables context-dependent mating in C. elegans

www.cell.com/current-biol...

The Hallmarks of Cancer Enter the Multiverse

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Advancing regulatory variant effect prediction with AlphaGenome - Nature AlphaGenome, a deep learning model that inputs 1-Mb DNA sequence to predict functional genomic tracks at single-base resolution across diverse modalities, outperforms existing models in variant effect...

I had intended to post something about this new Google DeepMind paper that appeared yesterday in Nature, but the press coverage has added to what there is to say. So this is a long 🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Back to Chromatin: ENCODE and the Dynamic Epigenome - Biological Theory The “Encyclopedia of DNA Elements” (ENCODE) project was launched by the US National Human Genome Research Institute in the aftermath of the Human Genome Project (HGP). It aimed to systematically map t...

For historical and conceptual context of understanding the genome as a dynamic reactive system, may I suggest our paper in @biologicaltheory.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

An ancient genome duplication event drives the development and evolution of spinnerets in spiders A genome duplication event during the Silurian played a crucial role in the evolutionary emergence of spinnerets in spiders.

Chromosome-scale #genomes from newly sequenced spiders & the whip scorpion, the genetic basis of spinneret emergence in spiders & the complex history & functional importance of arachnid genome #evolution www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #biodiversity #genomics

Neural crest contribution to craniofacial structures and phenotypic variation

#DBfeature

Bones, brains, and bias—neural crest cell contribution to craniofacial structure

Active Learning Assignments for craniofacial perception & normal phenotypic variation

by Jeffrey Carmichael, Diane Darland et al
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

How does gene regulation shape brain evolution? Our new preprint dives into this question in the context of mammalian cerebellum development! rb.gy/dbcxjz
Led by @ioansarr.bsky.social, @marisepp.bsky.social and @tyamadat.bsky.social, in collaboration with @steinaerts.bsky.social

The Caenorhabditis Genetics Center Curated Special Collections: a guide to protein degradation systems Abstract. The Caenorhabditis Genetics Center is launching a new website feature—“Curated Special Collections”—designed to help researchers navigate the eve

The Caenorhabditis Genetics Center Curated Special Collections: a guide to protein degradation systems

academic.oup.com/genetics/adv...

Calling all OrthoFinder users!

We’ve just released GLADE, a tool to infer gene gains, losses, duplications, and ancestral genomes across a phylogeny.

GLADE runs directly on OrthoFinder results.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
github.com/lauriebelch/...

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On the repeated evolution of parthenogenesis in stick insects Abstract. Female-producing parthenogenesis is widespread in stick insects. It ranges from rare in sexual species to facultative or obligate, the latter som

Are stick insects unique in their ability to transition to parthenogenesis?

Our new review in @journal-evo.bsky.social covers intraspecific and hybrid origins, cytological mechanisms, and co-occurence of female-only and sexual populations, with comparisons to other taxa.

doi.org/10.1093/evol...

Check out our new review in Nature Reviews Genetics on de novo emerged genes and proteins. How they emerge, are lost and persist - and how de novo emerged proteins relate to randomized proteins! @bornberglab.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Drive, suppression and escape from suppression of a selfish chromosome Abstract. Meiotic drivers are selfish genetic elements that are predicted to spark rapid intra-genomic arms races with their suppressors. However, the long

Check out our new paper, out in the current issue of Proc B!

In this work, we investigate the long-term persistence of the Drosophila pseudoobscura SR chromosome without suppression. We reconstruct its evolutionary history, showing that it has a history of suppression and escape from suppression.

The Evolutionary Genomics of Meiotic Drive Abstract. Meiotic drivers are selfish genetic elements that gain transmission advantages by distorting equal, Mendelian segregation. For decades, biologist

Meiotic drive has long been considered as a genetic curiosity. Genomic "footprints" suggest otherwise.

Check out our new review doi.org/10.1093/molb..., a cross-taxa synthesis arguing that recurrent drive is a pervasive and underappreciated force in genome evolution.

Sonic hedgehog is not a limb morphogen but acts as a trigger to specify all digits in mice Limb patterning by Sonic hedgehog (Shh), via either graded spatial or temporal signal integration, is a paradigm for “morphogen” function, yet how Shh…

Finally had a chance to read this beautiful paper from Susan Mackem's lab. It's interesting that even well-established paradigms, like Sonic Hedgehog's role as a traditional morphogen in limb development, can be proven wrong over time.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Do contest-related traits evolve faster? A test of the exaggerated evolution hypothesis in a clade of Neotropical arachnids royalsocietypublishing.org/rsbl/article... | #BiologyLetters #Evolution

gonna do the old science twitter thing and post my reading here this year

New paper with @smishra677.bsky.social!

How many different trees can be generated by just one duplication event? It turns out A WHOLE LOT, if you consider the coalescent process.

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www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Homepage - 2026 Population, Evolutionary, and Quantitative Genetics Conference Visit our website to learn more.

PEQG! My favorite conference ever*. Single session, fantastic talks, great discussions. Only once every 2 years. And in the best conference location too! Abstract deadline coming up Feb 5!

*Disclosure: I am required to say it's the best conference because it is and I told my mom I wouldn't lie.

Parasex generates highly recombinant progeny in Candida albicans with increased virulence - Nature Microbiology An alternative mating system, termed parasex, produces progeny with high levels of genotypic diversity and is able to fulfil the roles of meiosis when it is absent in the fungal pathobiont Candida alb...

OUT NOW! Parasex generates highly recombinant progeny in Candida albicans with increased virulence

By Robert Fillinger, Scott Filler, Anna Selmecki, Richard Bennett,
Matthew Anderson & colleagues.
#microsky @annaselmecki.bsky.social

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

From genotype to phenotype with 1,086 near telomere-to-telomere yeast genomes - Nature A newly compiled atlas of species-wide structural variants and gene-based and graph pangenomes derived from highly complete assemblies of genomes from 1,086 natural isolates enable integrative genome-...

✨ Latest exciting story of the group in @nature.com. Here, we go beyond SNPs and built a species-wide atlas of genetic variants in yeast. With >1,000 near T2T genomes, we show how large genomic variations affect trait diversity.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An extensive ER network develops in the olfactory hair cells of Drosophila. Inagaki et al. @riken-bdr.bsky.social report that the transmembrane protein Gore-tex controls a novel ER to the plasma membrane trafficking pathway essential for the cuticular nanopore formation. rupress.org/jcb/article/...

A protein language model unveils the E. coli pangenome functional landscape regulating host proteostasis

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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Haldane’s law works through X:Autosome incompatibility in Caenorhabditis briggsae/C. nigoni hybrids

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

Does the evolution of seemingly-widespread intraspecific toxin-antidote systems drive speciation in nematodes???