"Chromatin organization in Asgard archaea: Histones, SMC complexes, and the archaeal roots of eukaryotic chromatin"
by Remus Dame & colleagues (@damelab.bsky.social)

"Understanding chromatin organization in Asgard archaea is key to understanding how eukaryotic chromatin evolved."

shorturl.at/6bLvx

How would chromatin look and work in Asgard archaea? @damelab.bsky.social and I share our ideas in our Trends in Genetics review, out now at doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...

We have just published a short note on archaeal phylogeny: complex mixture models support a deep placement of Methanonatronarchaeia within Euryarchaea and indicate that three recently described groups (Halorutilales, Afararchaeaceae, and Ordosarchaeia) are actually the same.

shorturl.at/5GMpU

PhD Position in Computational Modelling of Fungal Evolution How do giant mobile elements called ‘Starships’ reshape fungal plant pathogens? Help us computationally model their spread and impact in nature and agriculture!

Phd Position alert 🚨

Join our project ASTRAfun (Adaptation and Starship Traffic in Root-Associated fungi), in which we will use computational models to unveil the hidden dynamics of fungal evolution.

It’s not going to be just regular fun. It’s going to ASTRAfun. 🤓

www.uu.nl/en/organisat...

🌞 Alles staat klaar voor de verkiezingen morgen.

Woensdag is de keuze aan de kiesgerechtigde inwoners van Wageningen.

Stemmen kan vanaf 7.30 tot 21:00 uur bij 21 stembureaus met stempas en identiteitsbewijs ⬇️

www.wageningen.nl/verkiezingen...

Diversity, ecology, cell biology and evolution of the Asgard archaea - Nature Reviews Microbiology The Asgard archaea have become a cornerstone of archaeal research, particularly for studies aiming to unravel the origin and early evolution of eukaryotes. This Review outlines the current state of th...

Just over ten years after the discovery of the first Asgard archaeal genomes, we revisit the rapid expansion of this remarkable archaeal lineage. From diverse genomes and metabolisms to eukaryotic signature proteins and the first cultured representatives.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Prediction of eukaryotic cellular complexity in Asgard archaea using structural modelling - Nature Microbiology A structural catalogue of the Asgard archaeal pangenome reveals hundreds of eukaryotic-like proteins that suggest a higher degree of cellular complexity in the archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes.

🧵 1/10 New paper out in @natmicrobiol.nature.com from my postdoc at @mib-wur.bsky.social! 🎉

How eukaryote-like was the archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes? Sequence searches alone can't tell us — so we used protein structure prediction to look deeper. 🧬
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We krijgen opvallend veel reacties op deze podcast. We zijn daar blij mee want we vinden het een belangrijk probleem. Dank aan iedereen die reageert en de podcast deelt! Het zijn er te veel om allemaal te kunnen beantwoorden. @maartenschinkel.bsky.social

One of the biggest questions in biology is how complex cells evolved about 2 billion years ago. Here's my new story on how scientists are solving the mystery of eukaryotes like us. Gift link: nyti.ms/4qMbo22

The LECA had a conventional kinetochore and the kinetoplastid kinetochore is a derived feature – a critical evaluation of Akiyoshi, 2025 Summary:Akiyoshi, 2025 presented a hypothesis with implications for the early evolution of eukaryotes and eukaryotic cell division machinery. In this Correspondence, the authors conclude that this hyp...

Recently, a Hypothesis was posed in @jcellsci.bsky.social in which the root of eukaryotes was placed between kinetoplastids and all other eukaryotes. From this, it was implied that LECA did not have a kinetochore. We argue this is highly unlikely. A 🧵(1/12)

Read our reply here: tinyurl.com/n87myhpr

Comparative Genomics of Unicellular Eukaryotes (San Feliu, Spain):
Abstract submission is open, with a short deadline! comparativegenomics2026.com

Join us as we explore the most diverse, surprising, and still largely uncharted branches of the eukaryotic tree.

I am very pleased to share that our database of prokaryotic and viral histones, ProHistoneDB, is now available online at prohistonedb.org. Please also see the accompanying article in J Mol Biol: doi.org/10.1016/j.jm...

I have a postdoc position in metagenomic exploration available in my group. Candidates with documented experience in phylo & metagenomics and preferably with petabase-scale data mining and GLM workflows are encouraged to apply. Come join us! 🧬🦠💻

Please repost

Apply here: www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/p...

Microbial eukaryotes keep challenging assumptions about eukaryotic cell and genome biology.

Our upcoming workshop explores the frontier of protist genomics and how it shapes cell biology, ecology and evolution.

Please save the date! Talks, posters and ECR events

Websites and details coming soon

Dated gene duplications elucidate the evolutionary assembly of eukaryotes - Nature Analysis of eukaryotic gene sequences using a relaxed molecular clock methodology indicate that eukaryotes emerged 3.0–2.25 billion years ago as a result of mitochondrial endosymbiosis with complex ar...

Eukaryogenesis was a billion year spree, but the acquisition of mitochondria happened when the party was winding down www.nature.com/articles/s41...

That's great news! Congratulations to the entire team!

Amazing news! Congratulations and good luck getting it started!

Very nice documentary about the origins of complex life with my PhD advisor Berend Snel @binfutrecht.bsky.social!

michael scott from the office is wearing a suit and tie and making a funny face . ALT: michael scott from the office is wearing a suit and tie and making a funny face .

OK, somebody should say it: the term 'one-stop-shop' has no place in academic research. Due to their diverse and exploratory nature, there is no single solution for scientific projects - else this would be routine research. RT if you agree, or feel free to argue otherwise below.

Newbies in the lab! Very happy to announce @jongpad.bsky.social starting a PhD and @oggenfussursula.bsky.social starting a postdoc position with us @mib-wur.bsky.social. Excited to have you around!

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

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

We are looking for a 3-year postdoc to work with Daniel Probst, Justin van der Hooft and myself on an exciting project involving federated learning and integrative omics for discovery of new antibiotics from natural products.
Apply here: www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/p...
Please share!

We are looking for a student to continue our work on chromatin evolution:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The project with @seanamontgomery.bsky.social will focus on chromatin state readers across eukaryotes.

More info: recruitment.crg.eu/content/jobs...

Supervisors and Projects

Please re-post: If you know (or are!) somebody who might fancy doing a PhD (Oct 2026 start) in my group @oxfordbiochemistry.bsky.social, working on chromatin evolution in prokaryotes (or other things we're interested in), please have a look at www.bioch.ox.ac.uk/supervisors-...

Congrats to the team for releasing this preprint and tool! @stephkoe.bsky.social @kassipan.bsky.social @danieltamarit.bsky.social @ettema.bsky.social

Apply to our PhD program!!

Happy to see our work published and glad to have contributed together with @maxraas.bsky.social ! Looking forward to all the projects that will come out of this work!

Excited to share our new paper in @cellreports.bsky.social that reshapes our understanding of chromosome organization's deep evolutionary roots! Our work dives into the origins of the machinery that structures our very genomes.

🔗: doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...

#Genomics #Evolution #CellBiology #LECA

We’ve uncovered Asgard chromatin structures formed by a Hodarchaeal histone : closed hypernucleosome conserved in archaea and an open form resembling the H3-H4 eukaryotic octasome. Fantastic work by @harshranawat.bsky.social!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#Chromatin #Asgard #Archaea #cryoEM

Wageningen University seeks a postdoc for a 2-year project on phage-host-superhost evolution using spatially explicit modeling. PhD required. Apply: www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/postdoctoral-... #postdoc