Charikleia Karageorgiou (Clio)

MBE | The evolutionary genomics of meiotic drive Meiotic drivers gain transmission advantages by distorting equal, Mendelian segregation. This review discusses the evolutionary genomics of meiotic drive. The figure highlights the interactions of meiotic drive elements with other classes of selfish genetic elements including: direct interactions between drivers and transposable elements (TEs) (A) or satellites (C) that can facilitate the spread of drivers; other drive systems that cause the mutual destruction of all gametes (B; e.g. the presence of multiple toxin-antidote systems); indirect interactions where the host machinery responsible for silencing TEs are recruited to silence drivers (D); dosage-sensitive interactions involving sex-linked drivers that result in gene amplifications (E); and tradeoffs between suppressing drive and TEs (F).

For a new MBE Review, Presgraves et al. argue that many features of genome evolution, content, and organization seemingly inexplicable by adaptation or nearly neutral processes are instead best accounted for by meiotic drive.

🔗 academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

#evobio #molbio

Paralog interference contributes to the preservation of genetic redundancy Duplicated self-interacting proteins can interact and interfere with each other’s function. Cisneros, Mattenberger, et al. show that selection against interfering loss-of-function alleles extends the ...

New paper alert: Paralog interference contributes to the preservation of genetic redundancy www.cell.com/current-biol...

Our most recent work on the “function and evolution” of #nuclear-speckles is now online at Cell @cp-cell.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...
Read the thread👇 for the highlights of our findings.

Evolution, genomics and conservation of butterflies and moths - Nature Reviews Biodiversity Butterflies and moths are key indicators of functioning and healthy ecosystems around the world. This Review describes the evolutionary history of the order Lepidoptera and tracks shifts in researcher...

Now online! In this review, we cover four major topics on butterflies and moths: their evolutionary history and diversification dynamics, genomics, global diversity patterns, and conservation 🦋🌏 (1/8) @natrevbiodiv.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s44...

@pratikkatte.bsky.social and I just released Lorax 🌲, a tool for interactive exploration of biobank-scale ancestral recombination graphs (ARGs).

If you’ve ever wanted to scroll across the ancestries of thousands of genomes… this is for you.

So excited to share this manuscript led by the inimitable Cara Brand, who discovered that Topoisomerase II evolution causes hybrid female lethality in Drosophila.

Congrats to Cara, @nickbr0wn.bsky.social, Anirban, and
@buszczaklab.bsky.social!

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

Beyond Mendel: a call to revisit the genotype–phenotype map through new experimental paradigms Abstract. The long-standing notion that genotypes map to phenotypes through simple one gene–one trait relationships continues to shape both research in the

Oft Herr Mendel dreams

that genes form living matter.

They do the latter.

doi.org/10.1093/gene...

Deep models of protein evolution in time generate realistic evolutionary trajectories and functional proteins https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.19.706898v1

Time-calibrated phylogeny of the family Drosophilidae showing major species groups, surrounded by representative adult flies that highlight the remarkable morphological diversity of this model insect group. The composite image was created using Microsoft PowerPoint. Fly photographs were taken by Darren J. Obbard and are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License with permission.

The #fly community aims to achieve a comprehensive genomic study of the Drosophilidae family. @pankajd.bsky.social @bernardkim.bsky.social @petrovadmitri.bsky.social @darrenobbard.bsky.social present a comparative gene annotation for 301 #Drosophilidae species @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4c3pyrI

Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres - Nature Evolutionarily related ‘proto-point’ centromeres providing resolution to the evolutionary origins of point centromeres are identified in yeast, and comparison shows they evolved in an ancestor with re...

Our paper is now out in Nature:

“Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres”

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

A short thread on how retrotransposons helped give rise to yeast point centromeres.

1/14

Aspergillus fumigatus - 29.9 crossovers per homologous chromosome pair! That makes about 1500 recombination map units per chromosome....

Pls RT‼️ @hanhtkvu.bsky.social lab @embl.org & we @cosheidelberg.bsky.social are looking for a #postdoc to study #regeneration x #autophagy across kingdoms of life.
www.health-life-sciences.de/opportunitie... Pls spread the word & get in touch if you are interested.

A reference-free pipeline for detecting shared transposable elements from pan-genomes to retrace their dynamics in a species - Genome Biology Background The role of transposable elements (TEs) in host adaptation has gained interest in recent years. Individuals of the same species undergo independent TE insertions, providing genetic variabil...

🚨📢📄 Article in press in Genome Biology doi.org/10.1186/s130...
We introduce panREPET, a reference-free pipeline to detect shared transposable element (TE) insertions across pangenomes and retrace their evolutionary dynamics #TEsky 🧵👇

In #GENETICS, Jacob Marsh, Sachin Kaushik, and @johriparul.bsky.social examine why and when rescaling of forward simulations in population genetics is not accurate, identifying pitfalls in simulation methods. buff.ly/wpzDRV9

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)

A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand The emergence of a chemical system capable of self-replication and evolution is a critical event in the origin of life. RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but their large size and structural ...

How could a simple self-replicating system emerge at the origins of life? RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but existing ones are so large that their self-replication seems impossible. Could they be smaller?

Excited to share our latest work in @science.org on a new small polymerase.
1/n

Abstract submissions are open, and the program will be largely driven by the submissions! If you're on the east coast for Biology of Genomes, this will be a fun few day jaunt to CT afterwards. Bonus- if you drive from Long Island, the ferry is a ton of fun!

We're excited to be recruiting an NSF funded postdoc to work in the Villanea lab at CU Boulder. We're specifically interested in candidates who want to work at the intersection of population genetics, ancient DNA, and computer modeling. Please RT

jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...

Hybrid female sterility due to cohesin protection errors in mouse oocytes Misregulation of chromosome cohesion during female meiosis serves as a reproductive isolating barrier in mice.

Another announcement! 📣 Our work on hybrid incompatibility in cohesin protection in 🐭oocytes is published!! Congrats Warif El Yakoubi and Eddie Pan!!🎉 We found hybrids with cohesion errors in two distinct genus.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New research in #GENETICS identifies chromosome number and mean chromosome size as practical proxies for genome-wide recombination rate by analyzing genetic map data from 73 insect species and 157 monocentric flowering plants. buff.ly/L4O68V5

Time for a thread on our Christmas preprint “Origin and evolution of acrocentric chromosomes in human and great apes”. I had so much fun with this project and paper. It will be hard to summarize in a thread, but I’ll try www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... [1/21]

New tool from @alexsweeten.bsky.social to find and classify all your satellites: "AniAnn's: alignment-free annotation of tandem repeat arrays using fast average nucleotide identity estimates"
📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
📦 github.com/marbl/anianns

The performance of genetic-constraint metrics varies significantly across the human noncoding genome https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.28.701168v1

Emergence and evolution of protein-coding de novo genes Nature Reviews Genetics - De novo gene evolution entails the birth of new genes from previously non-coding DNA. In this Review, Bornberg-Bauer and Eicholt overview how protein-coding de novo genes...

New review out in Nat Rev Genet: Emergence & evolution of protein-coding de novo genes by Erich and Lars Eicholt @lacholt.bsky.social. How non-coding DNA becomes translated, persists or is lost in populations, and can yield structured/functional proteins—plus methods & open questions! rdcu.be/e09SM

Discovery of additional ancient genome duplications in yeasts Whole-genome duplication (WGD) has had profound macroevolutionary impacts on diverse lineages,1,2 preceding adaptive radiations in vertebrates,3,4,5 t…

Excited to announce our latest publication in reporting evidence for three (3!) new whole genome duplications (WGDs) in yeasts. Scientists have often wondered why WGD is so rare in fungi, it turns out we may just not have been looking hard enough! 🧪 🍄 🧬
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We hope this little guide and review of the recent literature on SVs will be useful for the community in #ecology #evolution #genomics #PopGen.

Great lead by Kat!!

A new extreme of meiotic evolution:

✔️ 𝗻𝗼 crossovers
✔️ 𝗻𝗼 gene conversion
✔️ 𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹 meiosis & fertility

Sex mimics clonality without becoming asexual, in the holocentric multicellular eukaryote 𝘙𝘩𝘺𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢 𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘶𝘪𝘴.

more about it:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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.

Pygenstrat: A Python package for EIGENSTRAT data processing AbstractMotivation. Ancient DNA studies rely heavily on the EIGENSTRAT genotype format (.geno, .ind, .snp) for standard population genetic analyses includi

@dilekopter.bsky.social

Common variation in meiosis genes shapes human recombination and aneuploidy - Nature Analysis of data from pre-implantation genetic testing sheds light on the genetic basis of meiotic-origin aneuploidy, the leading cause of human pregnancy loss, identifying common genetic variants ass...

Pregnancy loss is common in humans, and chromosomal abnormalities are the leading cause. Using genetic data from ~140,000 IVF embryos, we show that maternal variation in meiosis genes influences recombination and aneuploidy risk.

First authors: @saracarioscia.bsky.social & @aabiddanda.github.io