We’re #hiring a #postdoc @ucriverside.bsky.social 🌿
Work on cis-regulatory evolution, gene family diversification, and cell-type-specific climate responses using single-cell and comparative genomics - kenchanmanelab.com/research/
Deadline: Feb 5, 2026
Apply: aprecruit.ucr.edu/apply/JPF02058
Genome Position Does Not Impact Transgene Expression Efficiency in the Ancient Red Alga Cyanidioschyzon merolae www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01...
RNA decay via the nuclear exosome is essential for piwi-mediated transposon silencing www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12...
Intrigued by a long-standing conundrum in small RNA biology—how nuclear Argonaute proteins silence transposons when they *need* target transcription for their own recruitment—we studied the piRNA pathway.
And found a hidden RNA-decay axis from Piwi to the RNA exosome.
Excited about the future of plant epigenetics?
Join us at the Keystone Symposium Plant Epigenetics & Epigenome Engineering in Fort Collins, October 13-16, 2025! keystonesymposia-19559593.hs-sites.com/%F0%9F%8C%BF...
Registration is open!
#PlantScience #Epigenetics #KeystoneSymposia
Have you ever wondered how new DNA methylation patterns are established?
Paradigm shift ahead! We discovered a new mode of DNA methylation targeting in plants that relies on transcription factors and sequence motifs rather than chromatin modifications to regulate the methylome. rdcu.be/eQ6L5
1/8
And this great Nature Plants News & Views by Pandesha and Slotkin covering this breakthrough discovery
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@hadse.bsky.social @KeithSlotkin @natplants.nature.com
8/8
Excited to release BoltzGen which brings SOTA folding performance to binder design! The best part of this project is collaborating with a broad network of leading wetlabs that test BoltzGen at an unprecedented scale, showing success on many novel targets and pushing the model to its limits!
Our paper out today: 50,000 years of evolutionary history of India: Impact on health and disease variation: Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
It’s back! Our annual night of fun and fundraising, Party with the Plants, is September 26. 🌺 Theme is “Plants in Paradise.” 🍍 Discounted tickets on sale now: bit.ly/4kXoRSn
#STLEvents #PartyWithThePlants
Spearhead Bio, a Danforth Technology Company startup, has received a grant from NSF that will allow them to fast-track their breakthrough genome engineering technology to develop corn varieties equipped for ag’s biggest challenges. Read more: https://loom.ly/zHfitlo
Very useful tool to map TDNA insertion site using RNAseq data
genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
Has anyone tried RUBY in a fungus?
Nice preprint! Structure of AVRcap1b from Phytophthora reveals a novel fold, and structural effector family. AVRcap1b targets the helper NLR NbNRC2. #plantimmunity
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
As an undergraduate who loved physical chemistry and was just starting biology, I thought the Meselson-Stahl experiment was the coolest thing ever. It was so simple in its application of physical theory and experiment to prove a biological truth that it was perfect. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/s...
The histone acetyltransferase GCN5 regulates floral meristem activity and flower development in Arabidopsis (Amangul Hawar , Wei Chen , Tao Zhu , Xin Wang , Jiaxin Liu , Shiqi Xiong , Toshiro Ito , Dijun Chen , Bo Sun) doi.org/10.1093/plce... #PlantScience
Cytokinin-ESR module promoting pluripotent stem cell identity in moss.
From: www.cell.com/developmenta...
🧪🧵 Check out this preprint dealing with one of my favorite gene families:
✨✨the Reproductive Meristem (REM) transcription factor family!✨✨
REMs are B3 TFs just like ARFs or RAVs but they are much less studied than their other B3 “cousins”. 1/4
Amazing. First cell cycle, then DNA methylation (paper/preprints posted somewhat recently), now sex determination. A class of TF that definitely needs more love.
a maize shoot apical meristem labeled with a plasma membrane marker fused to cyan fluorescent protein
maize shoot apical meristems are the cutest! 😍
plasma membrane labeled with PIP2A-CFP
Fig. 1. (short legend see paper for full description): Null met1-1 mutants cannot be produced by crossing TILLING lines with disruptions in the three MET1-1 homoeologues. (A) Evolutionary relationships between MET1 homologues in Arabidopsis (AtMET1), rice (OsMET1a and OsMET1b), and wheat (homoeologue groups TaMET1-1, TaMET1-2, and TaMET1-3). (B) Crossing schematic showing the generation of the hexaploid MET1-1 populations: the C0465×C0884 population (top) and the C0451×C2028×C1292 population (bottom). (C) Structure of the three MET1-1 homoeologues. Filled rectangles represent exons, open rectangles represent untranslated regions, and lines represent introns. Triangles indicate the positions of the premature termination codon mutations in the TILLING lines used to produce the two hexaploid F2 populations (C0465×C0884, orange; C0451×C2028×C1292, purple). The green box signifies the Bromo adjacent homology domain (BAH) and the blue box signifies the C-5 cytosine methyltransferase domain.
🌾🧬 SPECIAL ISSUE RESEARCH 🌾🧬
📝 Varying gene dosage through mutating DNA methyltransferase 1-1 (MET1-1 ) in polyploid wheat generates quantitative changes to CG methylation without the lethal consequences observed in other crops - Burrows et al.
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...
#PlantScience 🧪
Transcription factors targeting RNA-directed DNA methylation machinery in Arabidopsis reproductive tissues.
From: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
I think I saw another preprint on this by another lab too.
Joanna Friesner- NAASC- honored for her support of the Arabidopsis community #ICAR2025
Our department mcb.berkeley.edu is soliciting applications for an Assistant Professor position studying fundamental aspects of genetics, genomics, evolution, and/or developmental biology. Bring it on! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF04110
I've 4 invite codes and would love to recruit some #plantscience folks. Pass it on!
Upstream regulator of genomic imprinting in rice endosperm is a small RNA-associated chromatin remodeler www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.08....
I'm writing up the @root-shoot.bsky.social Inclusive Conferences Working Group efforts to date & next steps.
Q for #PlantScience community.
What in your opinion / experiences are biggest barriers to inclusion + belonging at meetings, & how to remedy?
We've got funds to put towards this objective!
In addition to the updated manuscript, we have expanded our online browser to enable the viewing of all transcripts detected in each of our single-nucleus RNA-seq datasets!
arabidopsisdevatlas.salk.edu
