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Giacomo Potente

@gpotente.bsky.social

100 followers 200 following 13 posts

Postdoc at the University of Zurich | Plant evolutionary genomics 🌱🧬 | Studying supergenes in angiosperms & sex chromosomes in liverworts

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Giacomo Potente @gpotente.bsky.social · Apr 9

👋 Hi Bluesky!
As a first post, I'm happy to share our new paper exploring what happens to sex chromosomes when a species transitions from separate sexes to cosexuality, using the liverwort Marchantia quadrata 🧬

Proud to share first authorship with Yukiko Yasui, with Péter Szövényi as senior author.

Cell Reports @cp-cellreports.bsky.social · Apr 4

Insights into convergent evolution of cosexuality in liverworts from the Marchantia quadrata genome

Potente et al. show that in the liverwort M. quadrata, the evolution of cosexuality involves the retention of the male (V) sex chromosome and the complete loss of the female (U) sex chromosome. This pattern parallels observations in another species, suggesting that transitions to cosexuality may be predictable in liverworts.

dlvr.it

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Reposted by Giacomo Potente

闵娅(Min Ya; Minya) PhD @minyaaa.bsky.social · 4d

And look at this graphic abstract….. 😱🤯

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Giacomo Potente @gpotente.bsky.social · 17h

- "What should I say if someone calls - like, you’ve won the Nobel prize or something?"
- "Just tell them I’m living my best life"

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 2d

Nobel committee unable to reach prize winner who is ‘living his best life’ hiking off grid

Fred Ramsdell was among those honoured with a 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine but might not know because he is somewhere in Idaho and uncontactable The Nobel committee has been unable to reach a winner of this year’s prize for medicine who is “living his best life” on an “off the grid” hiking foray. Fred Ramsdell shared Monday’s prestigious prize with Mary Brunkow of Seattle, Washington and Shimon Sakaguchi of Osaka University in Japan for their discoveries related to the functioning of the immune system. Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

Giacomo Potente @gpotente.bsky.social · 6d

New preprint! In collaboration with @ergabiodiv.bsky.social, we explored the convergent #evolution of the S-locus #supergene controlling distyly in the #primrose family.

Link: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

#heterostyly #genomics #preprint #bioRxiv

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Reposted by Giacomo Potente

Nature Genetics @natgenet.nature.com · 8d

✨Don't miss the N&V✨

📰The dawn of bryophyte genomics is here.

By Giacomo Potente, Yuling Yue & Péter Szövényi.

⬇️

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

The dawn of bryophyte genomics is here - Nature Genetics

Bryophytes are a widespread group of land plants that occupy nearly all biomes, yet their genetics and evolutionary history have long remained underexplored. Now, a study that generates extensive genomic data for bryophytes highlights de novo gene formation and horizontal gene transfer as key forces that shape bryophyte diversity and adaptation.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Giacomo Potente

Tanja Slotte @tanjaslotte.bsky.social · Sep 2

*Postdoc in Evolutionary genomics at Stockholm University*
We are recruiting a postdoc for a large interdisciplinary project to investigate evolutionary drivers and genomic consequences of pollen evolution in response to pollination mode shifts in flowering plants. 1/5

su.varbi.com/what:job/job...

Purple pollen visible in a dissected flower of Linum grandiflorum, flowering flax, an insect-pollinated species.

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Reposted by Giacomo Potente

Dan MacGuigan @dmacguig.bsky.social · 16d

Check out our new preprint! We compare sequence versus synteny approaches for resolving a challenging #phylogenetic problem. In this case, synteny is far more informative! Also includes the first chromosome-level #genome for the enigmatic #fish family Gyrinocheilidae. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

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Giacomo Potente @gpotente.bsky.social · 16d

... And here’s the original paper by Dong et al.: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Bryophytes hold a larger gene family space than vascular plants - Nature Genetics

A super-pangenome analysis incorporating 123 newly sequenced bryophyte genomes reveals that bryophytes exhibit a larger number of unique and lineage-specific gene families than vascular plants.

www.nature.com

Giacomo Potente @gpotente.bsky.social · 16d

Excited to share that my first News & Views is out in @natgenet.nature.com!

Together with Yuling Yue and @peterszovenyi.bsky.social, we highlight a landmark study presenting 100+ bryophyte genome assemblies and what they reveal about plant evolution.

🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The dawn of bryophyte genomics is here - Nature Genetics

www.nature.com

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Mario Vallejo-Marin @nicrodemo.bsky.social · 21d

Where does pollen go after leaving a flower? Our paper on pollen fates in buzz pollinated flowers is out. Congrats to the three brilliant undergrads that carried out this study from beginning to end!

pollinationecology.org/index.php/jp...

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Giacomo Potente @gpotente.bsky.social · Aug 18

🌱 How does polyploidy shape plant reproduction?
Excited to have contributed to a new study in @molbioevol.bsky.social on the loss of distyly in the polyploid Primula grandis!
doi.org/10.1093/molb...

Genomic Patterns of Loss of Distyly and Polyploidization in Primroses

Abstract. Transitions from outcrossing to selfing and from diploidy to polyploidy often co-occur in plants, likely because the ability to produce selfed se

doi.org

Reposted by Giacomo Potente

Ecology Group Basel - Sabine Rumpf @ecologybasel.bsky.social · Aug 14

*Job alert*
Come work with us! We have a fully funded 4yr #PhD position in #alpine & #Arctic plant #ecology available in our group @unibas.ch. The project includes fieldwork & connects to other ongoing projects on species range shifts & microclimate.
jobs.unibas.ch/offene-stell...
Please repost!
🌐🧪

Universität Basel: PhD position in alpine and arctic plant ecology

The research group Ecology at the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Basel in Switzerland invites applications for a fully funded four-year PhD position in alpine and arctic pla...

jobs.unibas.ch

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Giacomo Potente @gpotente.bsky.social · Jul 11

Delighted to see this piece celebrating 60 years of the University of Leicester’s Department of Genetics! 🧬
I spent a few months there as an Erasmus student and I have great memories of the brilliant people met there. Here’s to the next 60! 🥂

Turi King @turiking.bsky.social · Jul 11

Lovely article by @edhollox.bsky.social in the @gensocuk.bsky.social magazine about the University of Leicester's Department of Genetics reaching the grand old age of 60! 🧬😊

Reposted by Giacomo Potente

Melissa Wilson @sexchrlab.bsky.social · Jul 11

🚨Preprint🚨

Sex chromosome identification & genome curation from a single individual with SCINKD
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Incredible work led by @drpintothe2nd.bsky.social in collaboration w/ @drsimonegable.bsky.social @stuartvnielsen.bsky.social @tonygamble.bsky.social SE Keating & CH Smith

Graphical overview of the biological foundations of the proposed approach.

Application of SCINKD to identify XY chromosomes in the Christmas island skink

Application of SCINKD to identify previously unannotated sex chromosomes in the Lesser electric ray.

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Dario Cantù @cantulab.bsky.social · Jul 5

Some months later, work is now published @natcomms.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia.bsky.social · May 29

'They say there's a need to create such a service in case U.S. funding is curtailed or the quantity or quality of its 37 million citations fall victim to politicization, or a DOGE-like chain saw attack of its trained personnel, sources told MedPage Today.'
www.medpagetoday.com/special-repo...

Germany Plans Global Alternative to PubMed

In the wake of a brief PubMed outage, team launches project to ensure uninterrupted access

www.medpagetoday.com

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Reposted by Giacomo Potente

Rob Waterhouse @rmwaterhouse.bsky.social · May 24

The WorkflowHub registry has a global reach, with hundreds of research organisations involved, and more than 800 workflows registered. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #bioinformatics #FAIR

WorkflowHub: a registry for computational workflows - Scientific Data

Scientific Data - WorkflowHub: a registry for computational workflows

www.nature.com

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Brendan Hunt @brendanimal.bsky.social · May 24

fire ant social chromosome exerts a major influence on genome regulation academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

The fire ant social chromosome exerts a major influence on genome regulation

Abstract. Supergenes underlying complex trait polymorphisms ensure sets of coadapted alleles remain genetically linked. Despite their prevalence in nature,

academic.oup.com

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Reposted by Giacomo Potente

Alexis Stamatakis @stamatak.bsky.social · May 15

RAxML-NG v2.0 beta is here

github.com/amkozlov/rax...
Features
1. Difficulty prediction
academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...
2. Adaptive search academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...
3. Early Stop
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
4. Model selection
5. Rapid bootstrapping academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

Release RAxML-NG v2.0-beta2 · amkozlov/raxml-ng

Main new features Adaptive tree search heuristic (Togkousidis 2023) , (Togkousidis 2024) Multiple fast branch support measures Integrated model testing Full Changelog: 1.2.2...2.0-beta2

github.com

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Maria Popova @mariapopova.bsky.social · May 15

Adventures in nature's nonbinary botany, with a side of Emily Dickinson – the poetic science of "perfect flowers" (the actual botanical term) www.themarginalian.org/2021/07/02/p...

Perfect Flowers: Adventures in Nature’s Nonbinary Botany, with a Side of Emily Dickinson

Rewilding the landscape of possibility for the poetry of being.

www.themarginalian.org

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Reposted by Giacomo Potente

Matt Johnson, PhD @mossmatters.bsky.social · May 2

The average American has three friends

Drawing of moss, liverwort, and hornwort, the three bryophyte friends.

Image from https://tentativeplantscientist.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/moss-liverwort-hornwort.png

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Nature Portfolio @natureportfolio.nature.com · Apr 30

Researchers in the US are seeking career opportunities abroad as President Donald Trump’s administration slashes science funding and workforce numbers, finds an analysis of Nature’s jobs-board data. #Academicsky 🧪

Exclusive: a Nature analysis signals the beginnings of a US science brain drain

A trawl of job views and application data suggests jobseekers are looking abroad as the Trump administration’s cuts to science take hold.

go.nature.com

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Dr. Asmeret Asefaw Berhe @aaberhe.com · Apr 25

doi.org/10.1002/saj2... Most transformative scientific solutions often emerge from curiosity-driven research, not just problem-focused/use-inspired approaches. #Soil science's greatest contributions will come from maintaining intellectual freedom to truly understand 1 of Earth's most complex systems

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Nature Plants @natplants.nature.com · Apr 22

New OA Letter: "Viral delivery of an RNA-guided genome editor for transgene-free germline editing in Arabidopsis" rdcu.be/eiJVL

...engineered the tobacco rattle virus to express the RNA-guided TnpB enzyme ISYmu1 and guide RNA for transgene-free germline editing.

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Reposted by Giacomo Potente

Tanja Slotte @tanjaslotte.bsky.social · Apr 18

New preprint! We investigated the evolution of supergenes and mechanisms underlying distyly in Linum species that diverged ca 33 Mya. 1/8
bsky.app/profile/bior...

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Giacomo Potente @gpotente.bsky.social · Apr 25

Congratulations, very interesting findings! 🎉

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