Gustavo Campagnaro

A non-coding role for trypanosome VSG transcripts in allelic exclusion Abstract. Bloodstream-form African trypanosomes display antigenic variation. This requires mono-telomeric but switchable expression of a Variant Surface Gl

academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Great to see this out! Big shout out to Douglas Escrivani, Seb Hutchinson & the Horn Lab!

@dundee.ac.uk
@ybri-uoy.bsky.social @york.ac.uk

JCB has rounded up a good collection of papers outlining best practices regarding reproducability in Cell Biology experiments, especially microscopy. Worth a read, and passing along to your trainees.

🧬Aspiring Editors🧬

Access Microbiology is recruiting Editors to join our board! We welcome expertise across all areas of microbiology, and are especially keen to hear from microbiologists working in clinical microbiology or genomics. Feel free to DM with any questions.

How do parasites strategically organise their genomes to influence gene expression? If you’re curious, check our latest review in @cp-trendsparasitol.bsky.social !

@biologyatyork.bsky.social @ybri-uoy.bsky.social @pasteur.fr

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

My attempt to become a professor was unsuccessful again but the diplonema tagging paper is now published in Open Biology. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Intrinsic differences in hamster and mouse macrophage biology correlate with susceptibility to L. donovani infection www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.01.668127v1

New preprint:
nxReLo: a simple assay to probe direct interactions between nuclear proteins in cells.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Joint effort between Sherif, Jana, and Maria, and in collaboration with Peter Andersen @germline.bsky.social.

Beyond the transcript: chromatin implications in trans-splicing in Trypanosomatids www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.08.663533v1

High-precision cytosine base editors by evolving nucleic-acid-recognition hotspots in deaminase - Nature Biotechnology Cytosine base editors are made highly precise through targeted directed evolution.

High-precision cytosine base editors by evolving nucleic-acid-recognition hotspots in deaminase - @uchichemistry.bsky.social bit.ly/46yTSaT

Precision-edited histone tails disrupt polycistronic gene expression controls in trypanosomes - Nature Communications Transcription in trypanosomatids, such as Trypanosoma brucei, is predominantly polycistronic and involves unconventional RNA polymerase II promoters. This study uses precision gene editing, site-satur...

I used inducible CRISPR/Cas9 to make Trypanosoma brucei cell line that allowed me to edit originally muti-copy histone gene. We uncovered a novel role of H4 histone tail in gene regulation. I enjoyed working on this exciting project with @joanarcf.bsky.social, a great mentor.
doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Precision-edited histone tails disrupt polycistronic gene expression controls in trypanosomes - Nature Communications Transcription in trypanosomatids, such as Trypanosoma brucei, is predominantly polycistronic and involves unconventional RNA polymerase II promoters. This study uses precision gene editing, site-satur...

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

Nice to have been involved in this great study from the Horn Lab, driven by @marketanovotna.bsky.social ! Elegant application of CRISPR precision editing and saturation mutagenesis!

JEM Spotlight on Parasitology: Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology Click on the title to browse this issue

We're highlighting some of the best #parasitology papers we've published in the last 5 years. Check out this special collection.
#protistsonsky
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1...

Mitochondrial RNAs can be found in mitochondrial RNA granules (MRGs) where they are processed. However, here the authors show that during transcription arrest, mt-mRNAs form granules distinct from MRGs.
@stirlingchurchman.bsky.social‬
www.life-science-alliance.org/content/8/9/...

📢 A well-written title and abstract can be the difference between “just another paper” and a highly cited one.

FASEB Publications has a new guide for authors with tips to write titles and abstracts that work harder for your research.

🔗 buff.ly/iODNZww

‼️Update! Abstract submission is now open for the 2025 Liverpool UK @microbiologysociety.org meeting on "Understanding and predicting microbial evolutionary dynamics”! Deadline July 7th #microsky 🧪🧫🦠 microbiologysociety.org/event/societ...

Registration is open for the Microbial Genomics of Eukaryotes meeting in Glasgow! This event will showcase diverse scientific achievements in eukaryotic genome research. Register now and submit your abstract by 12 August: microb.io/MicroGenomic...

Next generation genetic screens in kinetoplastids pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40530689/

Three Hungry Tryps: the efficient endocytic pathway of pathogenic trypanosomatids Eukaryotic cells incorporate various molecules through a process known as endocytosis, which is crucial for the cell's survival and reproduction. While this process has been extensively studied in mammalian and yeast cells, significant contributions have also been made by researchers studying pathogenic protists. This review aims to present the most relevant information about the endocytic process in three important trypanosomatids: Trypanosoma cruzi, Trypanosoma brucei, and Leishmania. Many protozoa exhibit strong endocytic activity across their entire surface. However, in trypanosomatids, this activity is highly polarized and occurs exclusively in the flagellar pocket. In the case of T. cruzi, endocytosis primarily takes place through the cytostome–cytopharynx complex. This process involves an entry site organization of the cytoskeleton, including the participation of specialized microtubules.

Three Hungry Tryps: the efficient endocytic pathway of pathogenic trypanosomatids Trends_Parasitol

Registration and Abstract submission for MPMXXXVI are now open! Abstract submission deadline is June 27th, get yours in quickly. @rmc9z.bsky.social @mjgubbels.bsky.social @omarharb.org
🔗https://www.parasitesrule.com/mpm-xxxvi

Expansion in situ genome sequencing links nuclear abnormalities to aberrant chromatin regulation Microscopy and genomics are used to characterize cell function, but approaches to connect the two types of information are lacking, particularly at subnuclear resolution. Here, we describe expansion i...

Boom!!! 💥💥💥💥
EpiSci - 🧬 - 🧪 - Expansion in situ genome sequencing links nuclear abnormalities to aberrant chromatin regulation
@Zachary D. Chiang. @Ajay S.Labade @jbuenrostro.bsky.social

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

Specialised RNA decay fine-tunes monogenic antigen expression in African trypanosomes Antigenic variation is a sophisticated immune evasion strategy employed by many pathogens. Trypanosoma brucei expresses a single Variant-Surface-Glycoprotein (VSG) from a large genetic repertoire, whi...

So happy to share the first preprint from our lab on post-transcriptional regulation at the VSG expression-site body in trypanosomes. @ybri-uoy.bsky.social @york.ac.uk

And it is now officially published in an issue as an Editor's Choice article 😁

📣 Next ParaFrap Webinar: Paul JENKINS (Team Gerald Spaeth) @pasteur.fr: "Determinants for visceral leishmaniasis progression: lessons from hamster and mouse models" @parafrap.bsky.social

Chairperson: Maryse Lebrun @lebrunlab.bsky.social

🗓️ May 15, 3pm CEST

🎟️ bit.ly/ParaFrapWeb

📢 Big Announcement: Registration & abstract submission open for EMBO Workshop "Host-Parasite Relationship: From Mechanisms to Control Strategies" organized by ParaFrap @parafrap.bsky.social @embo.org

🗓️ 5-8 Oct 2025 - Les Embiez Island-France

🔚Deadline: 15 Jul 2025 meetings.embo.org/event/25-hos...

Defining the chromatin-associated protein landscapes on Trypanosoma brucei repetitive elements using synthetic TALE proteins Kinetoplastids, such as Trypansoma brucei, are eukaryotes that likely separated from the main lineage at an exceptionally early point in evolution. Consequently, many aspects of kinetoplastid biology ...

Our latest collaborative work with Keith Matthews’ lab using synthetic DNA binding proteins to explore the chromatin protein contexts of repetitive sequences in Trypanosoma brucei in now on bioRxiv - thanks to all involved! 2025.04.22.649942; doi: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Blog series: How to make labs more sustainable Photo of Jeroen Dobbelaere Guest author: Jeroen Dobbelaere The Company of Biologists logo to the right

Our fifth blog from the #SustainableLab series written by Jeroen Dobbelaere is out. Check out how to manage the materials and resources used in a lab to make your research space more environmental-friendly: bit.ly/4jZTyFy.

Workshop Decoding Whole Genome Doubling: Insights From Evolution, Development and Disease 2-5 November 2025, Fanhams Hall, Hertfordshire, UK Secure your place alongside leading experts and other early-career researchers. Applicants from diverse scientific backgrounds are encouraged. Deadline: 2 May 2025 Renata Basto Institut Curie, France Zuzana Storchova University of Kaiserslautern, Germany Uri Ben-David Tel Aviv University, Israel Kirsten Bomblies ETH Zurich, Switzerland Clotilde Cadart Institut Cochin, France Brian Calvi Indiana University Bloomington, USA Sangita Choudhury Harvard Medical School, USA Daniela Cimini Virginia Tech, USA Chantal Desdouets Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers, France Don Fox Duke University, USA Matilde Galli Hubrecht Institute, The Netherlands Neil Ganem Boston University, USA Gohta Goshima Nagoya University, Japan Nicholas McGranahan University College London, UK David Pellman Harvard Medical School, USA Bethan Psaila University of Oxford, UK Simen Rød Sandve Norwegian University of Life Science, Norway Charles Swanton The Francis Crick Institute, UK Iva Tolić Ruđer Bošković Institute, Croatia Yves Van de Peer Ghent University, Belgium To find out more or apply online visit workshops.biologists.com #BiologistsWorkshops *Terms and conditions apply

🧪Early-career researchers - Apply by Friday 2 May for a funded place at our Workshop 'Decoding whole genome doubling: Insights from evolution, development and disease' organised by Renata Basto and Zuzana Storchova. www.biologists.com/workshops/de...

#BiologistsWorkshops #ECR

Fexinidazole as a new oral treatment for human African trypanosomiasis due to Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense: a prospective, open-label, single-arm, phase 2-3, non-randomised study pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40288400/

A comprehensive toolkit for protein localization and functional analysis in trypanosomatids pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40169015/

RNA function follows form – why is it so hard to predict? AlphaFold’s highly accurate structural models transformed protein biology,but RNA lags behind.

AlphaFold’s highly accurate structural models transformed protein biology. Nature reports on the efforts to create a similar system for RNA and why it’s a tougher nut to crack. #RNAsky 🧪