Congrats Guifeng! Great to see this out in its final form
09.09.2025 13:04 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Decoding cnidarian cell type gene regulation
Animal cell types are defined by differential access to genomic information, a process orchestrated by the combinatorial activity of transcription factors that bind to cis -regulatory elements (CREs) to control gene expression. However, the regulatory logic and specific gene networks that define cell identities remain poorly resolved across the animal tree of life. As early-branching metazoans, cnidarians can offer insights into the early evolution of cell type-specific genome regulation. Here, we profiled chromatin accessibility in 60,000 cells from whole adults and gastrula-stage embryos of the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis. We identified 112,728 CREs and quantified their activity across cell types, revealing pervasive combinatorial enhancer usage and distinct promoter architectures. To decode the underlying regulatory grammar, we trained sequence-based models predicting CRE accessibility and used these models to infer ontogenetic relationships among cell types. By integrating sequence motifs, transcription factor expression, and CRE accessibility, we systematically reconstructed the gene regulatory networks that define cnidarian cell types. Our results reveal the regulatory complexity underlying cell differentiation in a morphologically simple animal and highlight conserved principles in animal gene regulation. This work provides a foundation for comparative regulatory genomics to understand the evolutionary emergence of animal cell type diversity. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. European Research Council, https://ror.org/0472cxd90, ERC-StG 851647 Ministerio de Ciencia e InnovaciΓ³n, https://ror.org/05r0vyz12, PID2021-124757NB-I00, FPI Severo Ochoa PhD fellowship European Union, https://ror.org/019w4f821, Marie SkΕodowska-Curie INTREPiD co-fund agreement 75442, Marie SkΕodowska-Curie grant agreement 101031767
I am very happy to have posted my first bioRxiv preprint. A long time in the making - and still adding a few final touches to it - but we're excited to finally have it out there in the wild:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Read below for a few highlights...
06.07.2025 18:14 β π 59 π 24 π¬ 1 π 2
Monumental work! Huge congrats to all involved
21.05.2025 16:28 β π 5 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0
It was such a pleasure to visit the beautiful cities of Bonn and Cologne, and have the opportunity to present my postdoc work at the @dzne.science. Thank you so much for hosting me @jsschrepping.bsky.social!
17.05.2025 13:25 β π 9 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Great to see the final form of this huge effort from the lab now published! Congrats Robert @juruehle.bsky.social @larsplus.bsky.social and all ππ
Read all about it this really cool work below β¬οΈ
09.05.2025 08:16 β π 9 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0
Awesome! Congrats Iana (+co)!
08.05.2025 11:47 β π 3 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Diversity and evolution of chromatin regulatory states across eukaryotes
Histone post-translational modifications (hPTMs) are key regulators of chromatin states, influencing gene expression, epigenetic memory, and transposable element repression across eukaryotic genomes. ...
Excited to share this story from the βChromatin Dream Teamβ in the @arnausebe.bsky.social lab on chromatin evo across eukaryotes! 12 histone mark profiles from 12 species, including rhizarians, discobans, and cryptomonads. Read on to see what we found! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/n
19.03.2025 12:02 β π 53 π 26 π¬ 1 π 4
Perfectly summarised! It was great to be part of such a fantastic event, and seamlessly cooperative organisation team. π
03.03.2025 08:56 β π 2 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
Preprint alert. Excited to share our latest work. We demonstrate that the primary function of m6A on Xist is to promote RNA degradation. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
10.01.2025 17:58 β π 4 π 1 π¬ 0 π 1
Assistant Member in csBio at Memorial Sloan Kettering. Perturb-seq, single-cell functional genomics, and techniques for perturbing the genome.
PhD student @CRG.eu, Dias-Frazer Lab, Irimia Lab | Probabilistic Machine Learning and Computational Biology, Evolutionary Biology
Probabilistic machine learning to address questions in evolution and health #EvolutionaryMedicine. PI at the Centre for Genomic Regulation, co-leading a group with Mafalda Dias. Previously Harvard.
ICREA Evolutionary Biologist working on transcriptomics of development and evolution at @upf.edu and @crg.eu. Coordinator of the @evomg-bcn.bsky.social Joint Program.
Lab website: http://transdevolab.com
Studying cellular #stress responses, particularly #senescence and its impact on #immune response, #ageing and #cancer, #tumorigenesis at Cancer Research UK CI βͺ@cruk-ci.bsky.socialβ¬, University of Cambridge βͺ@cam.ac.ukβ¬
Website: naritalab.com
James Davies Lab, Oxford University
Assistant Prof at Utrecht University, studying the process of transcription elongation vs early termination. (she/her)
Engineering cells to understand their decisions
ESPOD Fellow @ebi.embl.org & @sangerinstitute.bsky.social
(Saez-Rodriguez & Parts)
lingering scientist @crick.ac.uk (Briscoe)
Group leader of Chromatin (Dys)function lab @MDC-BIMSB
Former Postdoc @Mundlos lab
PhD @ Schirmer lab
https://www.mdc-berlin.de/robson
Periodista, escritora, investigadora. Derechos humanos, relaciones internacionales
https://www.eldiario.es/autores/olga_rodriguez/
https://t.me/olgarodriguezf
https://olgarodriguezfr.substack.com/
PhD student @Brockdorff lab
Transcription factors, gene regulation, single cell, perturbations. Science, mountain and wilderness enthusiast. Assistant Professor @ University of Zurich
European πͺπΊ | #Berlin π | PhD student in medical systems biology 𧬠with @leifludwig.bsky.social | Cooking & mountains
PostDoc at Systems Medicine, DZNE, studying innate immunity and memory in the context of inflammatory challenges using (sc)Omics technologies and bioinformatics.
Science: Group Leader at WEHI, Immunology, Haematopoiesis, Dendritic cells, Clonal lineage tracing, Barcoding
Media: Ask the Doctor, Catalyst, The Jab Gab, Searching for Superhuman, The Great Acceleration
Group leader @crg.eu | blood, single cell, synthetic genomics
International research centre devoted to curing #cancer and other diseases linked to #aging. @cerca.cat center, member of @bist.eu.
www.irbbarcelona.org
PhD student in the Ruprecht lab CRG β‘ UIBK
π¬ | Nuclear Mechanosensing β‘ | Cell squeezer π€
Currently looking at embryonic zebrafish epithelial cells eating under a microscope ππ½π¬
PhD student at Ruprecht lab @crg.eu