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Charlie Underwood @charlieunderwood.bsky.social · 4d

We are looking for a new colleague to work as a postdoctoral researcher on crop genomics and machine learning! The position is within our GenomeDesigner project (www.ru.nl/en/research/...). Feel free to be in touch or directly apply here: www.ru.nl/en/working-a... Please share!!!

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Charlie Underwood @charlieunderwood.bsky.social · 21d

Looking forward to discuss latest results on Apomixis at the 5th international Apomixis conference in Montpellier this week: www.alphavisa.com/apomixis/2025/

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Reposted by Charlie Underwood

raphmercier.bsky.social @raphmercier.bsky.social · Aug 25

Preprint Alert! 🚨🧬
Not one, but two preprints!

Meiotic orientation of kinetochore at meiosis is inforced by...[see below]
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

and

Unlocking meiotic crossovers next to plant centromere
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

#meiosis4ever
#everythingisconnected

a thread👇

Monopolar orientation of kinetochores at meiosis is enforced by COHESINS and their regulators, CENP-C, and the deSUMOylase SPF2

The first division of meiosis is unique in its capacity to halve the ploidy of the future gametes. To this end, one key innovation compared to mitosis is the monopolar orientation of the pairs of sist...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Charlie Underwood

Nature Plants @natplants.nature.com · Jul 23

The July issue is now fully online:
www.nature.com/nplants/volu...

On the cover: in hops, sex is determined by an X–A balance system in which plants with a high ratio of X sex chromosomes to autosomes become female and those with a lower ratio default to becoming male.
Paper: rdcu.be/expBd

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Reposted by Charlie Underwood

Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · Jun 28

‼️Can we tune crossover hotspot activity by targeting chromatin modifiers? Absolutely!💥
Our screen shows dCas9-JMJ14 represses crossovers at targeted sites, while VP64 boosts them!
🧬 Check our new preprint:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

#meiosis4ever #CRISPR #Arabidopsis

https://biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

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Reposted by Charlie Underwood

Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · Jun 28

This is the result of several years of hard work by Wojtek Dziegielewski and @szymanskalejman.bsky.social, with important support from Anna Wilhelm and Karolina Hus.

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Reposted by Charlie Underwood

Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research @mpipz.bsky.social · Jun 27

📣📣We are #hiring! 📣Please RT! @mpipz.bsky.social has a group leader position available in the broad area of Plant Development and Diversity 🌿. Apply now!🌿 👉http://bit.ly/4nkUvLa #plantsci

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Reposted by Charlie Underwood

North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee @naascarabidopsis.bsky.social · Jun 16

Maarten Koorneef- honored for his lifetime of excellence in research, mentorship, and support of the Arabidopsis community #ICAR2025

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Charlie Underwood @charlieunderwood.bsky.social · Jun 18

Congratulations on this masterpiece work!

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Reposted by Charlie Underwood

André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · Jun 18

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I am very excited to announce our🌹NEW PAPER OUT IN 𝑁𝐴𝑇𝑈𝑅𝐸!🌹
𝐃𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐕𝐄: Bimodal centromeres in pentaploid dogroses shed light on their unique meiosis
With the Ritz and Kovařík labs we show a potential role for centromeres on 𝘙𝘰𝘴𝘢 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘢 bizarre reproduction!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Bimodal centromeres in pentaploid dogroses shed light on their unique meiosis - Nature

Insights into the dogrose genome and centromeres explain their ability to achieve stable sexual reproduction.

www.nature.com

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Charlie Underwood @charlieunderwood.bsky.social · Jun 5

New apomixis development! The hawkweed PARTHENOGENESIS gene can trigger embryogenesis and clonal reproduction in hybrid rice plants! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Extending Mendel's legacy: the application of hawkweed PpPAR for inducing synthetic apomixis in hybrid rice

www.sciencedirect.com

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Charlie Underwood @charlieunderwood.bsky.social · Jun 5

If you think this could be of interest to you or someone in your network please feel free to reach out. You can find more information here: www.nwo.nl/en/news/six-...

Six new researches start in March 2025 within Open Technology Programme (2024 round) | NWO

Six application-oriented projects can start with funding from the Open Technology Programme from NWO's Applied and Engineering Sciences domain (AES). NWO is supporting these application-oriented proje...

www.nwo.nl

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Charlie Underwood @charlieunderwood.bsky.social · Jun 5

Our GenomeDesigner project, implemented together with partners Dick de Ridder and Sander Peters @w-u-r.bsky.social, aims to develop models that predict meiotic crossover landscapes with the idea to apply them in crop breeding by design.

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Charlie Underwood @charlieunderwood.bsky.social · Jun 5

Together with my new colleague Roven Rommel Fuentes @ribesresearch.bsky.social we are currently looking to hire a PhD student or postdoc in the area of computational genetics and machine learning.

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Charlie Underwood @charlieunderwood.bsky.social · May 14

Wonderful!

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Reposted by Charlie Underwood

Schneeberger Lab @labschneeberger.bsky.social · Apr 16

📢 Excited to share our work out now in @nature.com! 📢

We present the phased pan-genome of tetraploid European potato, based on 10 historical cultivars representing 85% of European potato diversity.

Learn more below!

🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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The phased pan-genome of tetraploid European potato - Nature

A haplotype-resolved pan-genome of autotetraploid European potato founder lines shows high nucleotide diversity at remarkably low haplotype diversity, which is probably the result of hybridization eve...

www.nature.com

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Charlie Underwood @charlieunderwood.bsky.social · Apr 4

Certain sunflower genotypes can undergo parthenogenesis when they are without pollen. This a surprising result and was discovered serendipitously during a plant breeding programme. A lesson to pay attention to your controls!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Haploid facultative parthenogenesis in sunflower sexual reproduction - Nature

Spontaneous parthenogenesis in sunflower has been used to develop a scalable doubled haploid breeding system.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Charlie Underwood

Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · Mar 19

🚀 Our collaborative work with @monica-pradillo.bsky.social, "Genetic dissection of MutL complexes in Arabidopsis meiosis," is now published in NAR! 🌱 doi.org/10.1093/nar/...
🔬 We show that MutLγ is crucial for ZMM-dependent crossovers, with MUS81 unable to fully compensate for its loss.

Genetic dissection of MutL complexes in Arabidopsis meiosis

Abstract. During meiosis, homologous chromosomes exchange genetic material through crossing over. The main crossover pathway relies on ZMM proteins, includ

doi.org

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Charlie Underwood @charlieunderwood.bsky.social · Mar 21

Congrats Defeng, Tonni and all contributors!

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Reposted by Charlie Underwood

New Phytologist @newphyt.bsky.social · Mar 8

#TansleyReview: Natural #neopolyploids: a stimulus for novel research

Edger et al. 👇

📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#LatestIssue #PlantScience

Figure 1: Evolutionary history of five polyploid complexes.

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Reposted by Charlie Underwood

Marc Somssich @somssich.bsky.social · Oct 26

#PlantScienceClassics #2: Radiation-induced mutagenesis. 100 years ago, in 1921, Emmy Stein developed radiation-induced mutagenesis of #Antirrhinum majus plants, a process she called ‘Radiomorphosis’. But today, her invaluable contribution is being completely ignored… Read on doi.org/10.1007/BF01...

A portrait of Emmy Stein and the title page of her paper, "Über den Einfluß von Radiumbestrahlung auf Antirrhinum".

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Charlie Underwood @charlieunderwood.bsky.social · Mar 5

A really nice seminar today from Venkatesan Sundaresan @mpipz.bsky.social

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Reposted by Charlie Underwood

Charles Melnyk @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social · Feb 25

Our review on using grafting to engineer plants is out! Have a look in Plant Journal 👇

The Plant Journal @theplantjournal.bsky.social · Feb 24

𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰📚
Modern and historical uses of plant grafting to engineer development, stress tolerance, chimeras, and hybrids
👉 doi.org/10.1111/tpj.70057
by Frauke Augstein & @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social
@SLU
Grafting advances+techniques+applications+ phenotypic improvements

Modern and historical uses of plant grafting to engineer development, stress tolerance, chimeras, and hybrids

Plant grafting has been practiced for millennia and recent developments have resulted in new species, new techniques and new applications appearing. Here, we review these advances focusing on develop...

doi.org

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Charlie Underwood @charlieunderwood.bsky.social · Feb 21

Thanks to @erc.europa.eu for funding and @mpipz.bsky.social and @ribesresearch.bsky.social for supporting and hosting our team

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Charlie Underwood @charlieunderwood.bsky.social · Feb 21