Peter Andersen
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germline.bsky.social
Peter Andersen
@germline.bsky.social
Germline genome regulation & genetic conflicts
piRNAs | paralogs | epigenetics | transposons | flies
Group leader, Aarhus University, Denmark (https://mbg.au.dk/pan)

YOLO but germ cells are immortal and I wanna know how they do that.
Pinned
🧬 New PAN Lab Preprint Alert! 🧬

1/ Genome defence pathway genes are crucial for animal fertility yet often evolve rapidly. We investigated the molecular basis of such rapid evolution in the fly piRNA pathway

TL;DR: protein-protein interaction innovation 💡🤝

🧵👇

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Recurrent innovation of protein-protein interactions in the Drosophila piRNA pathway
Despite being essential for fertility, genome defence pathway genes often evolve rapidly. However, little is known about the molecular basis of this adaptation. Here, we characterize the evolution of ...
www.biorxiv.org
Reposted by Peter Andersen
A new and fascinating story from @bencarty.bsky.social and the group, with crucial help from the teams of @naltemose.bsky.social, Simona Giunta, and @dfachinetti.bsky.social. Many thanks to all for a fantastic collaboration.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
November 25, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
🪱 Selfish genes are everywhere and drive some of biology’s biggest innovations (CRISPR, antibody recombination, epigenetics). Yet almost no one asks the obvious question: how does a selfish gene begin? Our new manuscript uncovers how selfishness can emerge directly from the host genome.
November 24, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
Latest work out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social

We find the fly development gene bicoid is much older than previously thought (~20 million yrs older!) 🪰🧬

To pinpoint its origins we tackled the Diptera phylogeny, providing some resolution (many open questions remain).

🔗 tinyurl.com/2vyuevpy
Revised evolutionary relationships within Brachycera and the early origin of bicoid in flies
Mulhair et al. uncover a functional bicoid in non-cyclorrhaphan flies, pushing the gene's origin back by ∼20 million years. Reassessing the Diptera phylogeny using the largest dataset to date permits ...
www.cell.com
October 17, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
open postdoc call in our friendly neighborgroup with Esben Lorentzen. Higly recommed🌟:
www.au.dk/om/stillinge...
Postdoctoral Position in Structural and mechanistic investigation of the ciliary trafficking machinery bound to cargo, Denmark - Ledig stilling på Aarhus Universitet
Ledig stilling ved Institut for Molekylærbiologi og Genetik - Proteinvidenskab, Aarhus Universitet
www.au.dk
November 24, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
🚀New preprint from our lab!
I am very excited to finally share what has been the main focus of my PhD for the past almost 3 years! It is about viral dark matter and a powerful tool we built to shed light on it. 🧬💡
Continue reading (🧵)
November 20, 2025 at 6:52 PM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
Lastly, I’m excited to join @imbmainz.bsky.social in 2026 to start my own lab. We'll explore new mechanisms in eukaryotic gene expression, leveraging ‘evolutionary play’ to uncover how regulation, repurposing, and hijacking shape RNA biology. tinyurl.com/y4x29ctt
Thanks for reading! 20/20
Research
IMB Mainz
tinyurl.com
November 19, 2025 at 11:22 PM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
Finally out in @nature.com! We uncovered a mechanistic framework for a general and conserved mRNA nuclear export pathway. www.nature.com/articles/s41.... 1/
November 19, 2025 at 11:22 PM
Very creative approach and findings about how pathogens manipulate host cells. @miketilapia.bsky.social recently presented this work here at Aarhus University => inspiration + fun discussions. Looking forward to diving into the full story!
Major new direction in the lab: hacking human cell biology with pathogen effectors (eORFs) - amazing collaboration with @miketilapia.bsky.social lab. Huge congrats to first authors Tomas & He & all co-authors! Check out the pre-print on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org
November 19, 2025 at 9:04 AM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
Does anyone have a photo of Charles W. Metz by any chance? He originally isolated the Holo2 line of Bradysia coprophila we still use after more than 100 years after their original capture.
November 18, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
Somehow I couldn’t reach the #Dipteran #Evolution community with my question… so maybe I need something controversial 😄

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐬 𝐂𝐡𝐲𝐦𝐨𝐦𝐲𝐳𝐚 𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐜!

#Phylogeny #TreeOfLife #Drosophila #Diptera

(… 𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘶𝘱 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘸)
Hey #Drosophila evolution people, quick phylogeny question! Is this simplified tree reasonable? I integrated multiple papers & added some polytomies, so that there is nothing too speculative in there. Does it look right to you? 🪰 It's just for a presentation 😉

#Evolution #Phylogeny
November 18, 2025 at 8:19 AM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
Out today, our take on 6-methyladenine #6mA evolution in Eukaryotes @natgenet.nature.com. We asked a simple question, is really DNA 6mA common across the eukaryotes? The answer is "yes" if you're a unicellular eukaryote 🦠, not so if you're multicellular 🐝🌱🍄. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/9
Adenine DNA methylation associated with transcriptionally permissive chromatin is widespread across eukaryotes - Nature Genetics
Long-read sequencing in 18 unicellular eukaryotes reveals that 6mA is widespread across eukaryotes and is enriched at transcriptionally permissive regions, which are also marked by H3K4me3.
www.nature.com
November 18, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
Are you an early-stage graduate student (2nd or 3rd year) or early-stage postdoc based in the US or Canada, working primarily in Drosophila? Would you like to help improve the experience of all trainees working in Drosophila research? If so, read on.

(Please repost to reach a broad audience.)
November 12, 2025 at 4:49 AM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
Chromatin fatigue: DNA repair alters the chromatin environment and introduces heritable variation in gene expression in a larger region around the lesion! Amazing achievement by @sbantele.bsky.social and Jiri Lukas published in @science.org 🙌 Happy we could contribute. See 👇
𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗹𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗗𝗡𝗔 𝗱𝗮𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗲?Excited to share our new study “Repair of DNA double-strand breaks leaves heritable impairment to genome function”, revealing DNA repair’s hidden cost, out now @science.org tinyurl.com/5n6zw3ye. Led by @sbantele.bsky.social and Jiri Lukas.🧵👇1/n
Repair of DNA double-strand breaks leaves heritable impairment to genome function
Upon DNA breakage, a genomic locus undergoes alterations in three-dimensional chromatin architecture to facilitate signaling and repair. Although cells possess mechanisms to repair damaged DNA, it is ...
tinyurl.com
November 12, 2025 at 3:55 AM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
FastGA -> ALNview; step into the centromeric matrix! github.com/thegenemyers Probably the best dot plot software on the planet...
November 11, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
New paper from the lab: we’re using long-read sequencing to disentangle isoform complexity at allele-specific loci 🧬💡
Here, we combine the PacBio Iso-Seq workflow with the established WhatsHap phasing approach to assign long reads to the correct allele in polymorphic F1 mouse hybrids.
November 11, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
I feel like I'm going crazy. Is reviewing grants and papers time-consuming and painful, but a vitally important part of our job and the scientific enterprise? Or is it drudge work we're supposed to outsource to AI?
November 11, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
Delighted to share Array Assembler — a web tool for designing oligos for generating crRNA arrays for #Cas12 and #Cas13 systems. Input spacers and key plasmid details to generate an order-ready XLSX of oligos, streamlining array creation while minimising cost, time, and errors. Happy CRISPRing!
May 8, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
new Lai lab paper @natsmb.nature.com! Dicer is specifically mutated in cancer, but we don't fully understand its molecular/reg impacts. with @danweihuangfu.bsky.social, we characterized the first knockin Dicer hotspot in hESCs, and found unexpected defects in miRNA biogenesis! 🧬 1/4

rdcu.be/eOc0q
Human DICER1 hotspot mutation induces both loss and gain of miRNA function
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology - Jee et al. study a cancer hotspot allele of DICER1 that disrupts RNaseIIIb activity. Beyond ablating 5p hairpin cleavage, 3p passenger strands are...
rdcu.be
November 10, 2025 at 4:43 PM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
Excited to share our new preprint on BioRxiv!
A collaborative effort spanning many years and several labs to uncover what the germline chromosomes of Paramecium really look like. 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
1/5
The tiny germline chromosomes of Paramecium aurelia have an exceptionally high recombination rate and are capped by a new class of Helitrons
Background. Paramecia belong to the ciliate phylum of unicellular eukaryotes characterized by nuclear dimorphism. A diploid germline micronucleus (MIC) transmits genetic information across sexual gene...
www.biorxiv.org
November 10, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
It's weird. A hundred years ago, only rich people owned cars while everyone else owned horses. Now only rich people own horses while everyone else owns cars.

How the stables have turned.
November 8, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
And we have another open position, this time with a focus on Genome Biology! Join a great community in Vienna to bring your research to the next level!
📢 Open Call! The Max Perutz Labs invite applications for a Tenure-Track Professorship in Genome Biology. We are particularly interested in researchers investigating the molecular and biophysical mechanisms underlying genome function and regulation. More details ➡️ tinyurl.com/3t7vvdct
November 6, 2025 at 4:35 AM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
great to be at the #EMBOMobileGenome meeting in Heidelberg with a wonderful bunch of colleagues, speakers and attendees.
this meeting is a good reflection of the excitement and collegiality in the transposon field.
kindly sponsored by @embo.org
Welcome to Day 1 of 'The mobile genome: genetic and physiological impacts of transposable elements'! 🧬

The opening remarks by Julius Brennecke accompanied by his fellow scientific organisers:
🔹Déborah Bourc'his
🔹Josefa González
🔹Joseph Peters

#EMBOMobileGenome
November 4, 2025 at 8:25 PM
What's the ultimate 45-minute introduction to RNAi?

Updating a lecture made me start from scratch to make it... ✨ ultimate ✨

Main focus: anti-viral and genome defense functions in plants+fungi+invertebrates

If you have input (or even better *slides*), please reply here or DM me

Thanks!
November 3, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
My awesome grad student Shashank and I wrote this paper trying to look at broader patterns of HT in TEs. HT is happening everywhere! DNA transposons jump further than other classes! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Recent horizontal transfer of transposable elements in Drosophila
Transposable elements (TEs) are genetic elements also known as "jumping genes" that increase their copy numbers within a host through various mechanisms of transposition. TEs can also move between spe...
www.biorxiv.org
October 31, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Reposted by Peter Andersen
🚨Our collaboration with @centriolelab.bsky.social & @gautamdey.bsky.social is out today in @cp-cell.bsky.social
We show that #Expansion #Microscopy is a broad-spectrum modality for Euks, enabling 3D phenotypic maps rooted to phylogeny.
#ProtistsOnSky #SciComm #SciSky

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
October 31, 2025 at 2:42 PM