Kaushik Ragunathan

📣 I hereby make my Bluesky debut to announce that our work linking DNA binding affinities and kinetics 𝘪𝘯 𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘳𝘰 and 𝘪𝘯 𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘰 for the human transcription factor KLF1 just got published in Cell! @cp-cell.bsky.social

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

Key findings in a thread (1/6):

Please reshare, repost- Summer research opportunities in the NIH Intramural Research Program for currently enrolled undergraduates or High School Seniors who are U.S. citizen or permanent residents. You can choose one of the ~1100 labs. Keep an eye here -

www.training.nih.gov/research-tra...

Genome maintenance by telomerase is a fundamental process in nearly all eukaryotes. But where does it come from?

Today, we report the discovery of telomerase homologs in a family of antiviral reverse transcriptases, revealing an unexpected evolutionary origin in bacteria.

doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Wonderful opportunity to work with Martin Howard and my group trying to understand how chromatin influences gene transcription and expression. Integration of theory, modelling, and experimentation. Come and join the team!
Please repost!

jobs.jic.ac.uk/Details.asp?...

Congratulations Alex! Really wonderful news!

We have an open post-doc position in my group to study mRNA cleavage and polyadenylation using biochemical reconstitution and cryoEM.

Please get in touch if you are interested in joining this amazing team! 🔬🧬🤩
#RNA #cryoEM

Super excited that this story by @borissieber.bsky.social is now on BioRxiv!

For decades, we thought there was no MAPK scaffold for the ERK-like cascade that promotes sexual reproduction in fission yeast ... until Boris found it !

See the thread 👇 and enjoy the paper!

doi.org/10.1101/2025...

What if NIH had been 40% smaller? Replaying history with less NIH funding shows widespread impacts on drug-linked research

This may be the most important paper ever published about NIH funded research.

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

The eukaryotic replisome intrinsically generates asymmetric daughter chromatin fibers DNA replication is molecularly asymmetric, due to distinct mechanisms for lagging and leading strand DNA synthesis. Whether chromatin assembly on newly replicated strands is also asymmetric remains un...

Some (+)ve news to lighten another heavy weekend: our latest preprint (c/o Mattiroli + Ramani labs) is up!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A tour-de-force by 1st authors Bruna Eckhardt & @palindromephd.bsky.social, focusing on chromatin replication. RTs welcome; tweetorial in 3,2...(1/n)

Congratulations! Excited to read this

Repression lite?

(1/n) New preprint from @claricehongky.bsky.social
Fan Fang Varshini Ramanathan in collab w Jie Liu.

Q: How do we get ultra-high-res 3D genome maps?

A: New deep learning model, Cleopatra.

Cleo trains on Micro-C, fine-tunes on RCMC, and predicts genome-wide 3D maps at ultra-high resolution.

Some truth telling

Protein-primed DNA homopolymer synthesis by an antiviral reverse transcriptase Bacteria defend themselves from viral predation using diverse immune systems, many of which sense and target foreign DNA for degradation. Defense-associated reverse transcriptase (DRT) systems provide...

Hello BlueSky! Inaugural post here from the Sternberg Lab. We're excited to share our latest work, in which we teamed up with the @WiedenheftLab to study how DRT9 reverse transcriptases provide antiviral immunity. Here’s what we found: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

CODANIN-1 sequesters ASF1 by using a histone H3 mimic helix to regulate the histone supply Nature Communications - CODANIN-1 negatively regulates the function of ASF1, the key chaperone for histone H3-H4 supply. Here the authors present the cryo-EM structure of the CODANIN-1_ASF1A...

𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐦𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐲! Excited to share our latest collaboration led by tkjeong.bsky.social and ciaranfrater.bsky.social! Structural determination of the histone chaperone ASF1 and its regulator CODANIN-1 uncovers how CODANIN-1 counters ASF1 activity. 🧵👇

Post-doc in fungal molecular cell biology. Seeking person with an understanding of gene expression and phenotypic analysis, who is interested in epigenetic regulation in fungi, to explore mechanisms of antifungal resistance in Zymoseptoria tritici and Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Email me! #ECFG17

Thanks for sharing. This was a really great conversation

A comprehensive Schizosaccharomyces pombe atlas of physical transcription factor interactions with proteins and chromatin Transcription factors (TFs) are key regulators of gene expression, yet many of their targets and modes of action remain unknown. In Schizosaccharomyce…

The realignment of research in our group @fmiscience.bsky.social is beginning to bear fruit. Proud of our captain @merleskribbe.bsky.social and the whole team!
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Disabling leading and lagging strand histone transmission results in parental histones loss and reduced cell plasticity and viability Losing parental histones during DNA replication fork passage challenges differentiation competence and cell viability.

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨 𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐃𝐍𝐀 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧? Our new study “Disabling leading and lagging strand histone transmission results in parental histones loss and reduced cell plasticity and viability” is out in 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘈𝘥𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴. Led by @lleonie.bsky.social @biranalva.bsky.social 🧵 More below👇

SPO11 dimers are sufficient to catalyse DNA double-strand breaks in vitro - Nature A biochemical system recapitulates the hallmarks of meiotic double-strand break formation, with mouse SPO11 catalysing break formation in the absence of any partners and remaining covalently atta...

🥳Just published @nature.com. Over 25 years after the discovery of SPO11 as the enzyme responsible for initiating meiotic recombination, we finally succeeded in reconstituting its DNA cleavage activity.🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Near 100% efficient homology-dependent genome engineering in the human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans We recently described CRISPR/Cas9-based short homology-dependent genome engineering in the human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans , a haploid budding yeast that is the most common cause of fung...

Our latest preprint describes methods and tools that enable >99% efficient short homology-dependent genome editing in the human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans. Congratulations to Matt, Sanjita, and Manning!

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

Sounds interesting. If expression levels are equalized across the two alleles not sure it directly accounts for sex determination but I like these examples of genetic compensation.

Was the indirect rate 15% or 55%? 🤔 Lovely pictures in any way event.

Yes! Been here for a week downing eight nalen gur rasagullas a day 😊

Sometimes in the heat even the trees are thirsty. Backwaters in Kerala

The Hooghly river drains into the Bay of Bengal. Just an absolutely gorgeous view of waters that nourish eastern India

Street art in Kolkata. The everyday is quite stunning.

At this END of YEAR please check out our new paper on GENE ENDS and a convenient marker of transcription termination: RNAPII CTD T4ph! We think it is relevant to anyone studying human/animal #genes and #genome so put a lot of effort to make it easy to read. #RNABiology and #Epigenetics meet:)

Delighted to share our new preprint on the cell biology and genome of Stentor pyriformis, a giant ciliate that maintains Chlorella endosymbionts in surface-associated microtubule baskets.

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

Love the images and poster!