Julien Richard Albert

Reporter CRISPR screens decipher cis-regulatory and trans-regulatory principles at the Xist locus - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology Here Schwämmle et al. develop CRISPR reporter screens to map transcription-factor-regulatory element interactions at the Xist locus, revealing a two-step mechanism integrating developmental and X-dosage signals to initiate X-chromosome inactivation.

⚠️ Paper alert: Using a novel CRISPR screening approach, we mapped the entire regulatory network controlling Xist—key for X-chromosome inactivation.
👉 We discover how sex and development signals are decoded at a single gene locus.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
👇 Bluetorial

extra fun: I got to watch the amazing @thomasbalan.bsky.social (@sandraduharcourt.bsky.social lab) present this work as part of his successful PhD defense only 2 weeks ago!

A developmental condensin I complex assists the Paramecium PiggyMac domesticated transposase during programmed DNA elimination Prokaryotes and eukaryotes use diverse strategies to cope with invading mobile genetic elements, including programmed DNA elimination (PDE). In the ciliate Paramecium , elimination of transposable ele...

Programmed DNA elimination in ciliates is rich in mechanistic insights and woefully understudied. Here, my colleagues pursue the link between condensin and the endonuclease responsible for eliminating 33% of Paramecium's genome
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

An interview with Azim Surani Professor Azim Surani is the Director of Epigenomics and Germline Imprinting at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, UK. He is this year's recipient of both the prestigious Kyoto Prize and the Paul Ehrl...

I didn't think I could admire Azim Surani more than I already did
journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

See this? This = implanting mouse embryo. Usually this happens inside its mother and is invisible to us, but we can actually watch implantation ex vivo with the hope of understanding why implantation goes awry in embryos of older women. A 🧵...

Incredible

Embryonic signatures of intergenerational epigenetic inheritance across paternal environments and genetic backgrounds | The EMBO Journal imageimagePaternal environmental exposures have been linked with modulation of phenotype and disease risk in offspring via largely unclear mechanisms. This study employs in vitro fertilization and sin...

❓Can a father’s environmental exposures before conception influence their offspring?

We systematically tackled this - identifying effects of paternal age, environment and genetics on early embryos - as well as confounding influences

www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Become my colleague @oxfordbiochemistry.bsky.social !
2 Associate Professorships in the areas of
- prokaryotic/eukaryotic microbiology
- metabolism

my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

PIWI clade Argonautes are essential for transposon silencing. Without them, animals are sterile due to massive transposon activity.

But how does piRNA-guided target interaction translate into silencing?

PhD student Júlia Portell Montserrat has an intriguing answer

www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Epigenetic relay: Polycomb-directed DNA methylation in mammalian development In mammals, repression of germline-specific gene expression is essential for preserving somatic cell identity and preventing disease. Germline gene silencing is often dependent on the presence of prom...

Very excited to share an excellent review from @teresa-urli.bsky.social, published one week before her PhD defense! We did a deep dive into the fascinating biology of the variant Polycomb complex, PRC1.6 (1/5) journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

Mutational scanning by multiplexed genome editing of the essential transcription termination factor Nrd1. Proteins operate through a few critical residues, yet most proteins remain uncharacterized at the deep molecular resolution, particularly within essential genes, where functional dissection is obstructed by lethality. Here, we establish a platform for mutational scanning of essential genes at their endogenous locus, combining a repressible complementation system with multiplexed CRISPR-based genome editing in budding yeast. Our approach provides a generalizable framework for dissecting essential protein function in vivo, expanding the capacity to map critical residues underlying essential cellular processes. We applied this strategy to NRD1, encoding an essential RNA Polymerase II (RNAPII) termination factor and performed a systematic alanine scanning with near-saturation coverage. We discovered novel and unexpected lethal mutations in the CTD-interacting domain (CID), thus revealing an unanticipated importance for this domain. Overall, our results demonstrate the power of our mutation scanning platform to map critical residues underlying essential cellular processes. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. European Molecular Biology Organization, https://ror.org/04wfr2810, ALTF 889-2022

1/ Do you have a favorite protein you wish you could dissect residue by residue? 🔬
Excited to share our platform for mutational scanning at endogenous loci in yeast (no ectopic expression needed!)
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Your best bet would be to wait for Black Friday

Switched to Affinity Designer ~3 years ago and haven't looked back

EvoChromo: Evolutionary approaches to research in chromatin Chromatin is the complex of DNA, RNA and protein that is found making up the chromosomes in eukaryotic cells. Chromatin is essential for proper genome function and is involved in chromosome segregati…

Please re-post:

Interested in chromatin and its evolution? Good news! There's still time to join us in beautiful Catalonia (9-12 Dec) to discuss eukaryotic, bacterial, archaeal, and viral chromatin and how it all hangs together meetings.embo.org/event/24-evo...

Abstract deadline: 30 September

He got lots of attention for spreading misinformation during the COVID epidemic... I guess that scintillation is enough to chase and disregard years of training?

Preventing CpG hypermethylation in oocytes safeguards mouse development Kawamura et al. show that H3K36me2 removal by the KDM2A and KDM2B histone demethylases restricts DNMT3A in establishing global DNA methylation in oocytes. Maternal Kdm2a/Kdm2b knockout embryos die dur...

Wonderfully in depth study on how DNA methylation is directed in mouse oocytes and the developmental consequences of misguiding methylation activity
www.cell.com/developmenta...

Congratulations!!! Very much looking forward to what your lab uncovers!!

Origin and elaboration of a major evolutionary transition in individuality - Nature Obligate endosymbiosis between the bacteria Blochmannia and ants of the Camponotini tribe originated through co-option of pre-existing molecular capacities and rewiring of developmental gene regulator...

This one too
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Obligate chimerism in male yellow crazy ants A newly discovered mode of reproduction in ants results in males being chimeras of haploid cells from two divergent lineages.

Unrelated but this paper keeps me up at night www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Sexual paratism is super cool. Some species of, I wanna say fish or frogs, eliminate the male genome immediately after fertilization

Are you @ the late stages of your postdoc ? Want to pursue a PI career ?

Then this 👇👇 is for you ! Apply for a spot @ our Talent Forum
www.helmholtz-munich.de/en/stem-cell...

Peer-networking / Career orientation and more !!!

Please distribute :) 🙂

The "unofficial" advertisement for our lab's FIRST PhD defense is circulating! Love it!!! (made by Angélique David in the lab, who isn't on Bluesky) 🍝🍕🍷

I personally prefer extracellular epigenetics creams

👀

Hard to beat clean data and graphs like these! 🤩

UHRF2 mediates resistance to DNA methylation reprogramming in primordial germ cells - Nature Communications DNA methylation in mouse primordial germ cells (PGCs) is restricted to transposable elements, but how this unique DNA methylome is established is poorly understood. Here, the authors identify UHRF2 as...

I believe that over the past ~ two decades, since the breakthrough papers on UHRF1, this is the first reported DNA methylation phenotype of its close paralog, UHRF2 (and not for lack of trying). Congrats to Ambre Bender and Michael Weber on this fantastic study! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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

Kennedy Cancels Nearly $500 Million in mRNA Vaccine Contracts

Every time I see this wet ashtray of a man I know I'm about to read something idiotic. Imagine being world leaders in new life saving tech and then letting one dude recklessly squander it all.
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/h...