Enhancer adoption by an LTR retrotransposon generates viral-like particles, causing developmental limb phenotypes - Nature Genetics Activation of an LTR retrotransposon inserted upstream of the Fgf8 gene produces viral-like particles in the mouse developing limb, triggering apoptosis and causing limb malformation. This phenotype c...

Finally out! 🥳 Our paper showing how a transposable element (TE) insertion can cause developmental phenotypes is now published @natgenet.nature.com 🧬🦠🐁
Below is a brief description of the major findings. Check the full version of the paper for more details: www.nature.com/articles/s41588-025-02248-5

MORC2 directs transcription-dependent CpG methylation of human LINE-1 transposons in early neurodevelopment Methylation of CpG dinucleotides is essential for silencing genomic repeats such as LINE-1 retrotransposons (L1s) in the germline and soma. Evolutionarily-young L1s are transcribed in human pluripoten...

Very proud of this work where we define how the MORC2 ATPase directs CpG methylation of active human L1 transposons in early development.

Thanks to co-authors, funders & wonderful environment @lundstem.bsky.social

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

Brief thread below (do people still do that?) 1/X

Barbara McClintock portrait

🧬🌽 Happy Transposon Day! 🌽🧬

Today we celebrate the birthday of Barbara McClintock - scientist extraordinaire and discoverer of jumping genes. Still the only woman to have an unshared Nobel Prize in the biomedical sciences #TransposonDay2025

LINE-1 ribonucleoprotein condensates bind DNA to enable nuclear entry during mitosis ORF1p forms condensates that bind to chromosomes during cell division, allowing L1 elements to insert themselves into the genome.

#TEsky LINE-1 ribonucleoprotein condensates bind DNA to enable nuclear entry during mitosis doi.org/10.1126/scia...

Always a treat to hear Kathy Burns - keynote speaker at #TECSHA and her groundbreaking work linking L1 retrotransposon activity to cancer. L1 ORF1p expression is a hallmark and a circulating biomarker of many cancers.

Join our team as a postdoc and explore the exciting world of transposable elements and developmental biology with us! @imbavienna.bsky.social @vbcscitraining.bsky.social

We are very proud that we can already present some of the publications resulting from Gevol. Check out the recent paper by Gevol member @Katja Nowick: Regulatory networks of KRAB zinc finger genes and TE changed during human brain evolution and disease. elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

Check out our preprint "De-repression of Transposable Elements by Histone Hyperacetylation Leads to Sterile Inflammation in Preeclampsia" www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-6...

Naturally occurring variation in gene-associated transposable elements impacts gene expression and phenotypic diversity in woodland strawberry Transposable elements (TEs) constitute a major portion of plant genomes and play key roles in shaping genome architecture, regulating gene expression, and driving genome evolution. In this study, we g...

Does the smell and flavor of strawberries depend on variations in gene-associated transposons? It seems so! Check out our new preprint! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Polymorphic transposable elements contribute to variation in recombination landscapes (drosohila 🪰) www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.... #TEsky

The domesticated transposon protein L1TD1 associates with its ancestor L1 ORF1p to promote LINE-1 retrotransposition DNA hypomethylation in human tumor cells results in the activation of the LINE-1-derived RNA-binding protein L1TD1 and its interactions with LINE-1 transposons.

#TEsky The domesticated transposon protein L1TD1 associates with its ancestor L1 ORF1p to promote LINE-1 retrotransposition doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

Drosophila follicle showing retrotransposons (pink & yellow) expressed in somatic cells infecting the oocyte

1/ Transposable elements are often called "jumping genes" because they mobilize within genomes. 🧬
But did you know they can also jump 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 cells? 🤯
Our new study reveals how retrotransposons invade the germline directly from somatic cells.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A short thread 🧵👇

In the ‘90s, Pelisson et al. found that gypsy retrotransposons in flies can go viral—literally—thanks to an envelope gene. Now, @mayavoichek.bsky.social uncovers a wild new path to retrotransposon infectivity. A fascinating story—see Maya's thread
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.14.642691v2

Today's @usatoday.com front page
First US death from measles in 10 years
First child to die from measles in 22 years in the US
All of this fully preventable

It's been a while because I've felt distracted lately with...*gestures at everything* but, I've gone and updated TE Hub @tehub.bsky.social with new tools, databases and TE lineages tehub.org #TEsky

It was amazing to have interacted with Jeff Boeke, from NYU and also witnessed his phenomenal talk at @mdc-bimsb.bsky.social
He has now put all human chromosomes in yeast, One by one. Also, they made parrots have conversation in five languages English, French, German, Swedish and Spanish 😂

Genetic mechanisms and adaptive benefits of anthocyanin-red stigmas in a wind-pollinated tree Abstract. Anthocyanin accumulation in leaves or flowers mitigates photooxidation damage from Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) and functions in plant/animal in

#TEsky LTR element insertions in MIEL1 gene in walnut genus as possible cause of red rather than yellow stigma tissue doi.org/10.1093/molb...

CSH-Asia "The Repetitive and Mobile Genome" meeting announcement poster

Don't miss the first edition of the CSH-Asia meeting on "The Repetitive and Mobile Genome" taking place in Suzhou, China.
📅 Abstract submission deadline extended: Feb 21, 2025
👉 www.csh-asia.org?content/2544
#transposon #mobileDNA #TEsky

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%.

I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

A CACTA-like transposon in the Anthocyanidin synthase 1 (Ans-1) gene is responsible for apricot fruit colour in the raspberry (Rubus idaeus) cultivar ‘Varnes’ Cultivated raspberries (Rubus idaeus L.) most commonly bear small, red, highly aromatic fruits. Their colour is derived predominantly from anthocyanins, water soluble polyphenolic pigments, but as wel...

#TEsky A CACTA-like transposon in the Anthocyanidin synthase 1 (Ans-1) gene is responsible for apricot fruit colour in the raspberry (Rubus idaeus) cultivar ‘Varnes’ doi.org/10.1371/jour...

The mobile genome: genetic and physiological impacts of transposable elements

Dear all, registrations are open for the Mobile Genome @EMBO workshop. Many slots for posters, short talks but also long talks for last minute groundbreaking results! Let’s meet again on Nov 4-7, 2025 in Heidelberg. www.embl.org/about/info/c...

Still looking for good locus-specific TE expression packages (TElocal)? Or single-cell/nuc RNA-seq analysis packages (TEsingle)? We've made those available prior to publication with lots of annotation files for your favorite genome build

GitHub links are at our website: www.mghlab.org/software

Frontiers | TEsmall Identifies Small RNAs Associated With Targeted Inhibitor Resistance in Melanoma MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small 21–22 nt RNAs that act to regulate the expression of mRNA target genes through direct binding to mRNA targets. While miRNAs typi...

TEsmall has also been out for a while: www.frontiersin.org/journals/gen...

TEsmall lets you look at all the different types of small RNAs in your data: microRNAs as well as the wild world of other small RNA products including tRNA fragments, piRNAs, and TE-derived siRNAs - with nice QC graphs

TEtranscripts: a package for including transposable elements in differential expression analysis of RNA-seq datasets Abstract. Motivation: Most RNA-seq data analysis software packages are not designed to handle the complexities involved in properly apportioning short sequ

TEtranscripts was published a while ago: academic.oup.com/bioinformati...

TEtranscripts is a great all-purpose gene and TE RNA expression package that produces joint gene & TE count tables. Working with genes & TEs simultaneously helps distinguish real TE expression from overlapping gene reads

Tracking transposable element (TE) activity in genomics data can be a pain, but there are solutions! Our lab built TEtranscripts -- which we've updated to work for small RNAs (TEsmall), bulk RNA at the locus level (TElocal), and in single-cell data (TEsingle). Check it out!

www.mghlab.org/software

Thanks for the shoutout!

I am very excited to share my latest work characterizing cytosine methylation of polymorphic insertions in the human population! #genomics A thread: 1/

I'm looking for a postdoc to join my fantastic team at the NIH in Bethesda, MD. Great resources. Competitive salary. www.training.nih.gov/jobs/pdf-mb-...