Peter Andersen

DNA methylation at retrotransposons protects the germline by preventing NRF1-mediated activation | EMBO reports imageimageIn spermatogenesis, loss of promoter DNA methylation reactivates retrotransposons in patterns shaped by chromatin modifications and the binding of DNA methylation-sensitive transcription fac...

Really beautiful work led by Jessica Leismann in Joan Barau’s lab @imbmainz.bsky.social . If you like elegant mouse genetics, the transposon arms race, and a healthy dose of epigenetics, this one’s for you. www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.... @emboreports.org

piRNAs are essential for transposon silencing in the animal germline.
But how do hosts trap transposon sequences in genomic loci that help establish a piRNA response?

Looking at a natural transposon invasion, Baptiste Rafanel and Kirsten Senti made some remarkable observations.

With news that NIH grant success rates are now below 5%, consider the effort that goes into one of these grants (apart from you, who submitted 60 AI-written grants)- why would you put in that much effort knowing your chances are only slightly better than winning a lottery? 1/

last call!
submit your abstract by tonight to be selected for one of the many oral presentations at the leading European Transposon Meeting. We are very much looking forward to your contribution and attendance!

Thank you @harmitmalik.bsky.social for laying out your research and its impact so elegantly at our last cafe of season 17. Video recording included in this link mailchi.mp/48ea3bcf93ff...

#RedQueen #Coevolution #virus #host #scicomm

Repressive cytosine methylation is a marker of viral gene transfer across divergent eukaryotes Abstract. Cytosine DNA methylation patterns vary widely across eukaryotes, with its ancestral roles being understood to have included both transposable ele

Happy to see our latest work out in @molbioevol.bsky.social. We revisit the evolution of 5-methylcytosine across neglected eukaryotic supergroups, establishing an ancestral repressive role silencing genome invaders, both transposons and viral elements👾: academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-... 🧵 1/7

CIG- UNIL

Become our colleague! Tenure-track Assistant Professor position at The Center for Integrative Genomics, University of Lausanne, Switzerland. unil.ch/cig/en/home....
More details for how to apply are here:
www.nature.com/naturecareer...

AlphaFold - A practical guide AlphaFold - A practical guide

Recently I learnt that EMBL-EBI has a free online course about AlphaFold — how it works, strengths and limitations, how to use it — and it's very good!

There are also little quizzes and interactives.
www.ebi.ac.uk/training/onl...

Need a quick and easy way to probe nuclear protein-protein interactions?

=> consider nxReLo assays 👀

🧫 cell culture-based (no rec. proteins needed)
🔬 direct read-out via protein co-localization (no IPs, no reporter genes)
⏱️ quick (transient transfection + imaging)

Kudos to the Jeske group!

Happy to share this paper! We uncovered that good 5' splice sites protect against ZC3H4/Restrictor's promiscuous role, and that its role is to suppress elongation and indirectly cause termination. Looking forward to learning more about this protein in the future!

A postdoc position in the Torben Heick Jensen lab, Aarhus University, Denmark: Mammalian Nuclear RNA Production and Turnover Systems - Ledig stilling på Aarhus Universitet Ledig stilling ved Institut for Molekylærbiologi og Genetik - RNA-biologi og -innovation, Aarhus Universitet

Second call for postdoc positions in the lab. Please follow the link below to apply or get in touch for further information.
mbg.au.dk/aktuelt/ledi...

Arthropod Model Organisms | LEGO® Ideas Scientists have learned a great deal about biology from a handful of "model organisms" – animals with unique characteristics that make them excellent for labora…

I can't believe this only ended up getting 3,590 supporters when it needed 10,000; it was a sad day. This has unlocked a new fixation, and I will campaign to get this reopened... #Drosophila #Tribolium #CoolScience #FruitFlies

beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

A male-essential miRNA is key for avian sex chromosome dosage compensation - Nature Birds have evolved a unique sex chromosome dosage compensation mechanism involving the male-biased microRNA (miR-2954), which is essential for male survival by regulating the expression of dosage-sens...

Our study on a male-essential microRNA and the evolution of other dosage compensation mechanisms in birds is now out in Nature! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Pls. share widely

Calling all transposon fans & lovers of genetic innovation

MOBILE GENOME welcomes you in Heidelberg, Nov. 4–7 2025

→ Vibrant & friendly community
→ Cutting-edge talks from mechanisms to physiology
→ Plenty of surprises (TEs never stop innovating)

submit abstract by July 29

I may be biased by my career stage, but I don't understand how anyone can look at the European academia (DACH, particularly) and conclude that we need even more centralization of research.

NIH Plans to Cap Publisher Fees, Dilute “Scientific Elite” Director of the National Institutes of Health says that capping research journals’ open-access fees will help rein in the $19 billion academic publishing industry and bolster scientific debate.

NIH Director say journals "bully scientists into paying large fees".

No. Academia is a prestige economy in which scientific leadership chose to make journals the currency & Gold OA was deemed 'the way'. Publishers just cashed in; you don't have to pay $10K

www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

The "reproducibility crisis" in science constantly makes headlines. Repro efforts are often limited. What if you could assess reproducibility of an entire field?

That's what @brunolemaitre.bsky.social et al. have done. Fly immunity is highly replicable & offers lessons for #metascience

A 🧵 1/n

Enhancer adoption by an LTR retrotransposon generates viral-like particles, causing developmental limb phenotypes - Nature Genetics Activation of an LTR retrotransposon inserted upstream of the Fgf8 gene produces viral-like particles in the mouse developing limb, triggering apoptosis and causing limb malformation. This phenotype c...

Finally out! 🥳 Our paper showing how a transposable element (TE) insertion can cause developmental phenotypes is now published @natgenet.nature.com 🧬🦠🐁
Below is a brief description of the major findings. Check the full version of the paper for more details: www.nature.com/articles/s41588-025-02248-5

Genetically encoded affinity reagents are a toolkit for visualizing and manipulating endogenous protein function in vivo - Nature Communications Probing endogenous protein localization and function in vivo remains challenging due to laborious gene targeting and monofunctional alleles. Here, using a toolkit consisting of genetically-encoded epi...

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

#spatialbiology #imagingtools #fluorescencemicroscopy

My last day at the @gmivienna.bsky.social & @viennabiocenter.bsky.social. Here’s what I accumulated at my (office) 🚪 🧵 1/advice from my daughters

Delving into LLM-assisted writing in biomedical publications through excess vocabulary Excess words track LLM usage in biomedical publications.

I love that the title uses "delve":

Delving into LLM-assisted writing in biomedical publications through excess vocabulary

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

ChAHP Silences SINE Retrotransposons by Inhibiting TFIIIB Recruitment Short interspersed nuclear elements (SINEs) are abundant non-autonomous transposable elements derived from RNA polymerase III (POL III)-transcribed short non-coding RNAs. SINEs retain sequence feature...

📖 Happy to share our recent preprint! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We discovered how SINEs are kept silent: the ChAHP protein complex acts as a molecular brake on POL III transcription retrotransposons. A 🧵:

If you like transposons...
If you you love genome editing...
Or if you just like random bird animations,

we have the paper for you!

We (@kedmonds.bsky.social et al) are happy to share our work turning a songbird retrotransposon into a genome editing tool. 🐣 (1/n)

Cartoon of 2 tetris games. The one on the left is from 9am, with a block waiting above that fits perfectly in the puzzle below, labeled "the one thing i need to do today". The other Tetris puzzle is from 5pm, with the block put on top of the puzzle, not fitting in at all.

Pretty much 😆

Transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of transposable elements and their roles in development and disease - Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology Transposable elements (TEs) comprise nearly half of the human genome. This Review discusses transcriptional and post-transcriptional mechanisms that repress TE activity, how TEs escape this suppressio...

We wrote a review on Transposable Elements (TEs) and almost all aspects of TE silencing and their roles in biological processes & disease.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Wonderful news, Juliane! All the best for setting up.

Looking forward to following the exciting discoveries of the Glaser lab 🥳

A cellular entity retaining only its replicative core: Hidden archaeal lineage with an ultra-reduced genome Defining the minimal genetic requirements for cellular life remains a fundamental question in biology. Genomic exploration continually reveals novel microbial lineages, often exhibiting extreme genome...

So cool, a novel archaeon with a super small genome and no metabolic genes!
"An unprecedented level of metabolic dependence on a host, a condition that challenges the functional distinctions between minimal cellular life and viruses."
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Latest from the lab! Led by @xuening-he.bsky.social, establishing a framework for interpretation of the motif syntax of regulatory elements and a quantitative model for transcription factor cooperativity. Plenty of cool stuff revealed, including TF redundancy and synergy, and their regulatory roles!

Always ‘one atom away’: The long, rocky journey to an HIV prevention breakthrough Developing lenacapavir, the drug newly approved to protect against HIV for six months in one shot, took basic science, sophisticated chemistry, and perseverance

Always ‘one atom away’: The long, rocky journey to an HIV prevention breakthrough | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

Portrait photo of Dr. Juliane Glaser

We are excited to officially welcome a new group leader at the MPI-IE in #Freiburg. 🎉

Dr Juliane Glaser 🥳 – she studies epigenetic mechanisms of embryonic development, with a focus on transposable elements. 👉 Interview: www.ie-freiburg.mpg.de/6043545/2025...

Welcome, @julianeg.bsky.social!