Fruit fly study reveals how mating triggers behavioural changes in females Researchers from The Universities of Manchester and Birmingham have identified the exact nerve cells in the brain that drive important behavioural changes in female fruit flies after they mate.The dis...

See our fantastic story in @elife.bsky.social from Karthik Nallasivan and @deepanshund.bsky.social well distilled by our press office champion Michel Addelman @mcf-uom.bsky.social @fbmh-uom.bsky.social
elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/f...

Delighted to share that our story is out in eLife! Here are some "SPRINZ" for you. Big thanks to Karthik and @matthiassoller.bsky.social. @mcf-uom.bsky.social @fbmh-uom.bsky.social . Social published in @elife.bsky.social

Interested in antisense oligonucleotides?
Check our story about downstream-of-gene ASOs (DG-ASOs)!
Together with the Roche Innovation Center we
identified transcription termination windows of protein-coding genes as ASO target regions.

link to BioRxiv:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Congratulations to all authors. 🎉

Excited to share our first publication of the year @mcf-uom.bsky.social . Here is a very detailed protocol how to do band-shift assays thanks to @davidmcquarrie.bsky.social and for the invitation @kifla.bsky.social

bio-protocol.org/en/bpdetail?...

Thank you @clarahowcroft.bsky.social (@northumbriauni.bsky.social) for an engaging talk on mechanism underlying group behaviour. It was a pleasure to host you at the #ManchesterFlyClub (@mcf-uom.bsky.social)🧬🪰

It was a pleasure to host Dr Ines Hahn (University of York) @exdrososcientia.bsky.social for the Manchester Fly Club, where she delivered a fantastic talk on GSK-3β’s role in organising microtubules and maintaining mitochondrial homeostasis. #FlySeminar #ManchesterFlyClub

TET dioxygenases localize at splicing speckles and promote RNA splicing The dynamic regulation of RNA metabolism plays a crucial part in cellular function, with emerging evidence suggesting an important role for RNA modifications in this process. This study explores th...

Published in the summer holidays: Roles for TET in speckles. Thanks @cardosolab.bsky.social @deepanshund.bsky.social @roliarnold.bsky.social and the others for this exciting collaboration.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/...

QKI ensures splicing fidelity during cardiogenesis by engaging the U6 tri-snRNP to activate splicing at weak 5ʹ splice sites During organogenesis, precise pre-mRNA splicing is essential to assemble tissue architecture. Many developmentally essential exons bear weak 5'splice sites (5'SS) yet are spliced with high precision, ...

Many conserved exons in the heart and brain utilize weak 5 ′ splice sites, yet they are accurately spliced. But how? We show that splicing fidelity is actively enforced through a QKI-U6 checkpoint at the U1→U6 handover in essential cardiac genes during organogenesis.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Different ways to die: harnessing variation in Drosophila reveals loss of tolerance and resistance over age and sex-specific association between infection susceptibility and lifespan It is widely accepted that susceptibility to infection increases with age. The reason often invoked is the dysregulation of the immune system, which is both cause and consequence of ageing. However, w...

New preprint - varied routes to ⬆️ infection susceptibility over age - via bona fide immunosenescence, but also often via reduced tolerance 🪰🕰️🦠☠️

⬆️ risk to die from infection predicts lifespan in males. Great group effort from the lab!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I have added you to the pack.

Engaging young minds with tiny flies!
Fantastic outreach session introducing Drosophila as a model to explore brain, behaviour, and disease.
Big thanks to Sanjai Patel for organizing the event and @rituparna-uom24.bsky.social @matthiassoller.bsky.social
#FlyLab #Drosophila #Outreach

We're hiring! Two exciting opportunities in our Lab @unibirmingham.bsky.social

Come work with us on decision-making and neural circuits in Drosophila. Please share!

Senior Research Technician + Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Deadline: 10 July

More info here: www.rezavallab.org

Big thanks to @clarahowcroft.bsky.social y.social, @toraks.bsky.social ks.bsky.social, @dpdoupe.bsky.social for organising the first NE Fly Meeting! It was inspiring to see the Northern Drosophila community come together with such warmth and energy. Here’s to more science, support, and shared ideas!

A post-meeting hub for North England Drosophilists — to share, connect, and collaborate beyond the room. Please share and add more people to this starter pack.
go.bsky.app/KJXNZVg

Stochastic splicing and deterministic inclusion of exon variables promote diversification of Down Syndrome Cell Adhesion Molecule expression Mutually alternative splicing in Down Syndrome Cell Adhesion Molecule ( Dscam ) gene of arthropods generates extraordinary molecular diversity producing tens of thousands of isoforms. From three clust...

New insights into alternative splicing of ever fascinating Down syndrome Cell Adhesion Molecule in Drosophila and honey bees thanks to @annalassota.bsky.social and T.C.Dix.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Honoured to be invited for a talk at IISER Tirupati! Grateful for the warm welcome — it was a real pleasure catching up with the brilliant faculty and curious minds of IISER. Until next time! 🍄🧬🐞

Here's the link to our latest review, emphasizing the tools required to dig into the RNA world in the brain.

doi.org/10.1016/j.nl...

We paid ~£80 to validate our CRISPR edit - still a good price.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Male quality assessment: Venerose seminal fluid sugar sensed by female brain neurons after mating. See our comment thanks to @deepanshund.bsky.social about an exiting story from the Young-Joon Kim lab.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10....

Beauveria bassiana was detected within the fly brain. Neurons are stained with DAPI (magenta) and B. bassiana with GFP (green). Left: whole brain view. Middle column: germlings or germinating spores colocalise with the neuronal marker DAPI and (right-hand column) have filaments.

Fungus on the brain. @deepanshund.bsky.social @aliciahidalgolab.bsky.social &co show that the #fungus Beauveria bassiana exploits the Toll-1 host response to activate the MyD88 inhibitor Sarm, enabling immune evasion and triggering #neurodegeneration in #Drosophila 🧪 @plosbiology.org plos.io/3EIxgZN

Toll-1-dependent immune evasion induced by fungal infection leads to cell loss in the Drosophila brain This study identifies a new step in the evolutionary arms race between host and fungus in the Drosophila brain. The fungus B. bassiana exploits the Toll-1 host response to activate the MyD88 inhibitor...

🚨 Our paper out in @plosbiology.org! A fungal pathogen hijacks #immune receptor to drive immune evasion and cause #neurodegeneration in the brain. Thanks to the incredible @aliciahidalgolab.bsky.social, our amazing collaborators and the funding from DarwinTrust, @wellcometrust.bsky.social & BBSRC.

Toll-1-dependent immune evasion induced by fungal infection leads to cell loss in the Drosophila brain This study identifies a new step in the evolutionary arms race between host and fungus in the Drosophila brain. The fungus B. bassiana exploits the Toll-1 host response to activate the MyD88 inhibitor...

Thrilled to see our paper out today @plosbiology.org! By wonderful PhD student @deepanshund.bsky.social & great team of collaborating authors. Fungi hack immune receptor to drive immune evasion in the brain & cause neurodegeration. Thanx DarwinTrust @wellcometrust.bsky.social @BBSRC for funding. 😃

Doing CRISPR: Check out our PlatinumCRISPr server update now including Cas12a sgRNA selection, thanks to @roliarnold.bsky.social

Or what about the #Drosophila computer game? Loads of stuff that I almost forgot about: scratch.mit.edu/projects/744...

Evolution of Wolbachia male-killing mechanism within a host species Male-killing bacterial symbionts, prevalent in arthropods, skew population sex ratios by selectively killing male progeny, profoundly impacting ecology and evolution of their hosts. Male-killing is a ...

New preprint from @haraipapilio.bsky.social with @bolinabug.bsky.social @daisukekageyama.bsky.social and others not on bluesky #symbiosky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Structural basis of 5′ splice site recognition by the minor spliceosome Zhao et al. present two cryo-EM structures of apo and substrate-bound U11 snRNP complexes, elucidating their architecture and the mechanism of the U12-type 5′ splice site recognition. The unique struc...

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

A high-protein diet-responsive gut hormone regulates behavioral and metabolic optimization in Drosophila melanogaster - Nature Communications Organisms regulate their feeding behavior to prevent overconsumption of certain nutrients. Here, the authors identify the importance of gut hormones in suppressing protein overfeeding.

Excited to see our new gut hormone paper in @naturecomms.bsky.social in collaboration with our alumnus Dr. Yuto Yoshinari (Gunma Univ.) and others!
A high-protein diet-responsive gut hormone regulates behavioral and metabolic optimization in Drosophila melanogaster.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

What an engaging talk by Fiona Whelan @whelanfj.bsky.social , who recently moved her group to Manchester from Nottingham! Thank you all for attending the session and contributing to such an interesting discussion. @mcf-uom.bsky.social @official-uom.bsky.social #manchesterflyclub

A neurotrophin functioning with a Toll regulates structural plasticity in a dopaminergic circuit A novel molecular mechanism linking a neurotrophin with a Toll-family and kinase-less Trk-like receptors provides a direct link from molecules to structural circuit plasticity and modification of beha...

Excited to share our new paper on molecular mechanism for circuit structural plasticity in the Drosophila adult brain. Congratulations @aliciahidalgolab.bsky.social and the amazing postdocs Dr. Jun Sun, Dr. Fran Rojo-Cortes & all contributing authors. doi.org/10.7554/eLif... doi.org/10.7554/eLif...