New Pre-Print Alert!
Evolving initial conditions: an alternative developmental route to morphological diversity
with Shannon Taylor and @jamesehammond.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Now published. Congrats to Soham and all co-authors! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/....
@embl.org
Zebrafish finds Nemo. New paper with our great collaborators on gap junctional communication in widely divergent species.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Our study on shape diversity in cnidarians is now published. The final version includes extensive new data that substantially extend the original bioRxiv preprint. Congrats to everyone who contributed to this work! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
@embl.org
Starting to think about what classes to take for next fall and I see so many interesting classes. But I also want to spend more time in the lab and I know I can fill the gap by reading the literature. But I also do wanna take classes :( How should I balance this!!
Pleased to announce two new publications, in Current Biology and PNAS, from outstanding postdoc Delai (Dylan) Huang, just a week before he leaves to start his new faculty position at Zhejiang University.
I finally went around to updating my Linkedin after not touching it for 2 years 😭
Fig. 1. Force impact on embryogenesis and organogenesis. Compelling evidence from published reports demonstrates that fate and differentiation of embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells depend on forces (shear and/or normal stress), substrate elasticity/viscoelasticity, and substrate topography. The observation from cell culture studies that mesenchymal stem cells undergo neurogenesis on soft substrates is consistent with the finding that a stiffness gradient is responsible for axons to change their turning direction caudally towards soft tissues in the developing Xenopus embryonic brain in vivo. Stem-cell based models are useful in understanding role of forces in the development of embryos, which are inaccessible in vivo for mammalian embryos. Blastoid formation via iPSCs is enhanced by 3D culture and substrate mechanics and may depend on endogenous forces (endo-force). Maturation of cardiomyocytes from iPSC differentiation is promoted by mechanical stretching. iPSC, induced pluripotent stem cells. Force is used here generically to represent any type of mechanical loading (force, torque, tensile or compressive stress, shear stress, torque per volume or specific torque) (exogenously or endogenously).
Fig. 2. A mechanobiology model of tumor cell self-renewal and metastasis. Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) from the primary tumor site soften the extracellular matrix (ECM) of the tumor microenvironment and break tumor cell dormancy, leading to tumor cell invasion. Stiff (>800 Pa) differentiated tumor cells and soft (<300 Pa) undifferentiated tumor stem cells such as tumor-repopulating cells (Lv et al., 2020) enter blood vessels (intravasation), arrest at narrow vessels, and exit blood vessels (extravasation) to metastasize to distance sites and form micrometastasis. In some cases, soft tumor stem cells proliferate and self-renew within a soft matrix (e.g., bone marrow, brain, lung, and liver) to establish metastatic colonization and grow into macroscopic metastases, or survive and enter dormancy within the stiff matrix, whereas stiff differentiated tumor cells die in the soft or stiff matrix of a different tissue (denoted by an X). In some other cases, when the matrix of tumor microenvironment of metastatic sites becomes inflamed and then softened, soft dormant tumor stem cells will exit dormancy, self-renew, and grow into clinically-detectable macroscopic metastases. Note that this simple model illustrates an element of the Virchow's postulate and highlights softness-based mechanoregulation of cancer progression, which is also regulated by other physical and soluble factors and cells such as tumor-associated fibroblasts and immune cells.
Fig. 3. Cell softness regulates cytotoxic T cell killing of tumor cells. Cytotoxic T cells enter tumor parenchyma, where the T cells use T cell receptor (TCR) to recognize MHC (major histocompatibility complex)-tumor antigenic peptide complex and form the synapse. The activated T cells then release perforin and granzymes to the synapse space where perforin forms pores on the plasma membrane of target tumor cells and allows the entry of granzymes into the cytoplasm, activating caspases 3 and 7 and leading to tumor cell apoptosis. However, drilling pores by perforin is not only a chemical but also a mechanical process. Cell stiffness (>600 Pa) is required for the pore formation by perforin and cell softness impairs perforin pore formation. Thus, soft (<300 Pa) tumor stem cells such as tumor-repopulating cells use their softness to evade T cell cytolysis by impeding perforin pore formation. On the other hand, activated T cells might be very soft, avoiding autolysis. In addition, it is possible that TCR-MHC binding may be equal in the molecular number but the interacting force may be weaker between the soft tumor cell and the immune cell than between the stiff tumor cell and the immune cell; as a result, the released granzyme and perforin from the immune cell may be less, contributing to less killing of the soft tumor cell. Stiff target cells are engulfed more avidly than soft target cells by macrophages, suggesting that this model may be applied to other immune cells.
Some say development is guided by forces. While the role of chemistry in dev bio is undeniable, growing evidence has pointed out the significant contribution of physics too. Chowdhury et al discuss how forces shape normal and cancer stem cells and the clinical applications.
doi.org/10.1016/j.cd...
One of my favorite papers when it came out in 2024 that explores sperm whale communications.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
I can't wait to see the analysis of the acoustics to see how they were communicating! 🐳
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Sperm whales are known to socialize, but scientists were stunned when they saw a group of sperm whales gather as one of them gave birth
Me when I discover that I had saved a tube of zebrafish embryos from a line that has been outcrossed out, so I don't need to wait 2 more months for the fish to come back. Thank you 2024 me!!!
New work by @sagnera.bsky.social & co
A conserved sequence of TFs: OC2 → Pou2f2 → Pou3f1 drives chronological diversification of spinal neuron subtypes across multiple cardinal domains
Spinal neuron diversity is generated by integrating spatial & temporal programs
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Saw some hyacinths on my walk back from lab today. I wish they weren't toxic to cats, or I would try to plant some 😭
Congratulations to Michael Wen and Andrew Gillis on this exciting paper out today!
Shared competence forms the basis of gill arch and paired fin serial homology | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Happy to announce that I'll be heading off to the Georgetown Biology department to start my PhD this fall! 🌸 I absolutely love DC and can't wait for this next chapter in my life.
Quickly becoming one of my favorite reads this year!! Can’t stop thinking about the blindness epidemic leading to the moral collapse, which is how I feel when I watch reels on ig about the news and then just scrolling thru brainrot 🥲
Come see my exhibition at the Intersect Arts Center! It is bringing me so much joy, I hope it will do the same for you (which I know we all need). #SciArt
www.instagram.com/p/DVhLvYoCaX...
"Salmiak coat coloration in cats. Hallmarks include tuxedo (bicolor) white spotting despite absence of known white spotting alleles (Ws, g), and pigment dilution within individual hairs, producing pale or unpigmented tips across the body, legs, and tail. Additional features include colored spotting within white areas of the forelegs and chest, intensified pigmentation over the scapular region, and a very pale tail tip. (a) Solid black; (b) solid blue; (c) brown mackerel tabby with heterozygous sibling; (d) long-haired solid black; (e) solid black; (f) tortoiseshell"
A new cat coat color (“salmiak,” or salty licorice - yum!) isn’t due to a mutation in the gene KIT, but to a deletion of DNA next to it.
Cats with this white hair pattern are missing ~95,000 bases .... maybe removing regulatory DNA that controls how KIT is used. #2026MMM doi.org/10.1111/age....
Very happy to see this out. 👏 @yinanwan.bsky.social
Bogdan Bintu and team.
Whole-embryo spatial transcriptomics at subcellular resolution from gastrulation to organogenesis | free link Science www.science.org/eprint/5MHTM...
Closely related species often exhibit distinct morphologies. Kenta Tomihara @pinharanda.bsky.social Takashi Kiuchi @pandolfatto.bsky.social &co uncover the genetic basis of caudal horn size differences between the domesticated silk moth and its wild relative.
🧪 #evolution #genetics
Lateral view of a preserved croaking gecko (Aristelliger) embryo
I’m so excited to announce our new paper in @journal-evo.bsky.social showing how embryology can help us determine ancestral character states in temporal niche
academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...
Collab w/ A Bauer, A Wegerski, @tonygamble.bsky.social, & A Rasys
#GeckoEvoDevo #Aristelliger
1/x
I used to do in my free time for my writing group with Pokemon 🥲🥲 Actual dream job!!
The rarest of the rare! This holy-grail dream fish is a larval-stage #monkfish, aka #goosefish.
Shot in the wild, using scuba, while diving at night over water several thousand feet deep, several miles offshore from Kumejima, Okinawa.
#larvalfish #blackwater #gug #deepseafish
Our #preprint list is now up on FocalPlane.
Start your week feeling inspired by the latest research using microscopy to answer questions in biology. Let us know if you have any recommendations for us to add.
focalplane.biologists.com/2026/03/09/m...
Enjoy this before the deep sea mining extractors get going - we really do need to start protecting nature and accept we need to leave something unexploited www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Also the alpha Pachy in the intro having bright blue eyes and the rival having yellow ones took me out 😭😭😭 I kindda prefer Prehistoric Planet so so much more
Watching the first episode of Netflix's Dinosaur series and while I appreciate the Triassic extinction event, I wasn't a big fan of the implied framing that the early Dinosaurs were evolutionary superior compared to the early reptiles 🙃 But the Tanystropheus were so cool!
During the interview weekends the prospective PIs I spoke to were very supportive and said I could sign up to go so... hopefully next year(!)
