Luca Braccioli Lab @ UU (@bracciolilab) Bsky

Congratulations Adriano!!!

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Mosaic gastruloids reveal a temporal restriction for developmental cell competition - Nature Cell Biology Frenster et al. utilize mosaic mouse gastruloids as a model of cell fitness and competition, identifying a temporal window between primed pluripotency and early gastrulation during which cell competit...

🥳 I am happy to share our latest manuscript published in @natcellbio.nature.com We use #Gastruloids to study #CellCompetition during early mammalian development and find not only that this is highly pronounced in our system but also tightly restricted in time. (1/12) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Don’t forget to sign up — registration is still open for the International Dutch Embryo Model Meeting 2026 in Utrecht (7–8 May)! 🚀
Hope to see many of you there. Registration closes 24 April!

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🔥 How does CTCF shape enhancer–promoter communication?

In our new preprint, we systematically test how the position and orientation of CTCF binding sites (CBSs) influence gene regulation at the mouse Sox2 locus.

🧪 full paper can be found here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

4 weeks ago 26 12 1 1

New paper out! Huge congratulations to Noemí Alonso Saiz (wet-lab) and Moreno Martinovic (computational) for leading fantastic work, co-supervised by me and @dewitlab.bsky.social.

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A dual role for CTCF in development CTCF is an essential DNA binding protein whose absence leads to embryonic lethality. CTCF is primarily known for its role in 3D genome organization where its N-terminal domain interacts with cohesin to anchor chromatin loops. How CTCF facilitates proper embryonic development remains unclear, necessitating temporal control to resolve its stage-specific functions. By combining gastruloids, an in vitro model of embryonic development, with a degron system to rapidly deplete CTCF at defined timepoints, we show that early CTCF depletion impairs early gastruloid morphogenesis. Surprisingly, ATAC-seq and time-resolved RNA-seq revealed that differentiation was unaffected. CTCF binding is strongly enriched at promoters of downregulated genes. Re-expression of a CTCF variant with an N-terminal truncation, incapable of looping, was sufficient to rescue the expression of CTCF-promoter bound genes and the defects in morphogenesis. However, extended culture (up to 168 hours) of gastruloids reconstituted with N-terminal truncated CTCF led to their collapse. Our work shows that CTCF has a dual function in early mammalian development: at early stages CTCF regulates developmentally important genes through promoter binding, while at later stages its looping function is required for correct development. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. European Research Council, https://ror.org/0472cxd90, 637587, 865459 Dutch Research Council, https://ror.org/04jsz6e67, 016.161.316, VI.C.222.049 Dutch Cancer Society, https://ror.org/0368jnd28, N/A

🧵 CTCF is essential for embryonic development, but why has remained unclear. By combining gastruloids with a temporal degron system, we uncovered a surprising dual function — and it changes how we think about CTCF's role in development. 1/8 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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More on enhancers at #gfe2026, with @bracciolilab.bsky.social exploring how long-distance, DNA loops are formed through CTCF and cohesin interactions in gastruloids. Removing CTCF early severely affects morphogenesis, but not differentiation, and is dependent on CTCF looping function. #gfe2026

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REMINDER!!!

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Join us for two days of discussions on blastoids, gastruloids, pluripotency, gametogenesis, implantation, and the ethical dimensions of embryo models.

2 months ago 1 0 0 0

🧬 We are excited to announce the
INTERNATIONAL DUTCH EMBRYO MODEL MEETING 2026
— Engineering the Origins of Life

📅 7–8 May 2026
📍 Utrecht, The Netherlands

Register & submit abstracts:
www.oncodeinstitute.nl/internationa...

2 months ago 4 2 1 4

🧬 We are excited to announce the
INTERNATIONAL DUTCH EMBRYO MODEL MEETING 2026
— Engineering the Origins of Life

📅 7–8 May 2026
📍 Utrecht, The Netherlands

Register & submit abstracts:
www.oncodeinstitute.nl/internationa...

2 months ago 4 2 1 4

The International Dutch Embryo Model Meeting 2026 | Oncode Institute

Join us for two days of discussions on blastoids, gastruloids, pluripotency, gametogenesis, implantation, and the ethical dimensions of embryo models.

2 months ago 2 1 0 0

🧬 We are excited to announce the
INTERNATIONAL DUTCH EMBRYO MODEL MEETING 2026
— Engineering the Origins of Life

📅 7–8 May 2026
📍 Utrecht, The Netherlands

Register & submit abstracts:
www.oncodeinstitute.nl/internationa...

2 months ago 3 2 1 2

Register now for the second Hubrecht Symposium, themed Molecular Machines in Development in Utrecht on March 26, 2026.

Visit hubrecht.eu/hubrecht-symposium-2026/ for registration and abstract submission.

Abstract submission deadline: February 1, 2026.

4 months ago 6 4 0 1

Reminder: Tomorrow is VGZT day! 🚀

Don’t miss great talks from
👉 Luca Braccioli (@bracciolilab.bsky.social)
👉 Komal Makwana (on X: @Komal_Makwana4)

4 months ago 8 5 0 0

Here is a copy of last year's Twitter thread explaining our preprint - jump to (21) for the new stuff 👀

Synergy between cis-regulatory elements can render cohesin dispensable for distal enhancer function

now revised and journal accepted at www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🧵👇

4 months ago 90 45 4 3

🧩 What breaks when you remove DNA loop extrusion?
Gastruloids show it: not lineage decisions… but morphogenesis.

That’s our contribution to www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Huge thanks to the amazing @karissalhansen.bsky.social + @elphegenoralab.bsky.social for leading this fantastic work 🙌

4 months ago 7 2 0 0

IT'S HAPPENING! 💥 I'm psyched to launch the collaboration between @qedscience.bsky.social & @openrxiv.bsky.social @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social! Preprint + q.e.d = your science is out there, and anyone can appreciate it. Let's care about making discoveries, and not on “getting published” (1/3) 👇

5 months ago 130 64 7 13

The Kahneman Chronicles: Lessons from a Fly Lab - the Node The Kahneman Chronicles #2: Loss Aversion and the Art of Quitting Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024) was a legendary psychologist who revolutionized our

Daniel Kahneman's imaginary sabbatical in a fly lab continues...this time: The art of letting go.

Have you felt the pain of stopping while standardising a new method? Or letting go of a project? When to stop, when to persist?
Have a read @the-node.bsky.social
thenode.biologists.com/the-kahneman...

5 months ago 2 2 0 1

Ascidians (Ciona intestinalis)🪸Our distant chordate cousins! 🌊 Simple sea squirts that reveal how vertebrate body plans evolved 🧬 A key model for notochord formation, neural induction, and cell lineage mapping 📸 Video by MBL Embryology 2019 #ModelMonday #DevBio #EvoDevo

5 months ago 116 40 2 1

Three short talks now at #GenBio25. @bracciolilab.bsky.social discusses the ability of cells to contribute to different lineages in a gastruloid model. Luca recently published an ‘In preprints’ article in @dev-journal.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1242/dev....

6 months ago 4 2 1 0

Congratulations Luca and the rest of the team, exciting story!

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Once again super congrats to you, Christine, Bas and the rest of the team!!!

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Very proud of our paper on "scrambling-by-hopping" LADs, which was just published: www.nature.com/articles/s41.... Congrats to Lise Dauban and the rest of the team – this was a real tour-de-force!

7 months ago 58 24 0 0

(1/14) I’m happy and proud to introduce: SpinePy – a framework to detect the "spine" of gastruloids and measure biological and physical signals in a local dynamic 3D coordinate system. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

7 months ago 62 23 4 2

It was a pleasure reading your work, excited about the next developments!

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Big thanks to my PhD student @wesselbrouwer.bsky.social and @dev-journal.bsky.social

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In preprints: gastruloids get (a)head A major breakthrough in the field of mammalian embryology is the development of stem-cell based embryo models. Derived from pluripotent stem cells, such as embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent ...

Ever wondered how to get a gastruloid to grow a head?

The Bulut-Karslioğlu lab figured out that by growing different stem cell aggregates in high and low oxygen and later assembling them, you can get gastruloids with a fully formed neural tube. Check out our "In preprints": doi.org/10.1242/dev....

7 months ago 16 6 2 0

We are searching for an enthusiastic scientist to join our team and establish annual killifish as a model system for early developmental biology and biophysics! @embl.org @embldbunit.bsky.social

Apply here:
embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/EMBL/job/Hei...

Please re-post 🙏

8 months ago 38 26 2 2

Posts by Luca Braccioli Lab @ UU