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Max Haase

@maxhaase.bsky.social

1.1K followers 480 following 290 posts

Chief Yeast Officer. Evolution, genomes, chromatin, cell cycle, centromeres, and kinetochore are scientific passions. PostDoc with Andrea Musacchio @ MPI-Dortmund. 🇺🇸 -> 🇩🇪

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Max Haase @maxhaase.bsky.social · Apr 25

It’s out! The evolutionary origins of yeast point centromeres uncovered!

“Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres”

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

Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres

The evolutionary origins of the genetic point centromere in the brewer's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a member of the order Saccharomycetales, are still unknown. Competing hypotheses suggest that t...

www.biorxiv.org

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Max Haase @maxhaase.bsky.social · 6d

Apparently termites have spent the past few millennia secretly building the "equivalent to ∼4000 great pyramids of Giza" in Brazil.

www.cell.com/current-biol...

A vast 4,000-year-old spatial pattern of termite mounds

Martin et al. show that in Northeast Brazil an estimated 200 million, regularly spaced, termite mounds are up to 4000 years old. Each mound is 2-4m high by 9 m in diameter; they occupy 230,000 km2, an...

www.cell.com

Reposted by Max Haase

Gilles FISCHER @gillesfischer.bsky.social · 22d

New preprint from the lab: we show that the ability to switch mating type was lost at least 13 times independently in the evolution of S. cerevisiae. At least 27% of isolates are heterothallic with a strong association with polyploidy and heterozygosity
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Repeated losses of self-fertility shaped heterozygosity and polyploidy in yeast evolution

Evolutionary transitions in mating strategy have profound consequences for genetic variation and adaptation. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, mating-type switching is a central feature of the life cycle t...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Max Haase

Andrea Musacchio @andrea-musacchio.bsky.social · 24d

The BUB1 and BUBR1 paralogs scaffold the kinetochore fibrous corona | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Congratulations @vcmentowski.bsky.social for solving a remarkably challenging molecular puzzle

The BUB1 and BUBR1 paralogs scaffold the kinetochore fibrous corona

The kinetochore fibrous corona docks on CENP-E and a second elusive receptor identified as the checkpoint protein BUB1.

www.science.org

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Max Haase @maxhaase.bsky.social · 27d

Twitter is a hell hole of bots talking to bots. I wouldn't buy to much into the hate and misinformation there. It's just become a far-right hyper-reality, sucks when it start oozing into reality tho

Max Haase @maxhaase.bsky.social · Sep 8

Or more likely, acknowledgement of classic reality would cause him to be kicked out of their delusional reality party.

Max Haase @maxhaase.bsky.social · Sep 8

He’s bought into the hyperreality of the mannosphere right, he cannot acknowledge facts of classic reality as that would crumble the pillars holding up their collective delusions

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Max Haase @maxhaase.bsky.social · Aug 28

One may argue unicellular life still rules the earth. Us multicellular forms are just really big and especially self-absorbed

Nature @nature.com · Aug 27

For some three billion years, unicellular organisms ruled Earth. Then, around one billion years ago, a new chapter of life began

go.nature.com/3JyRV4S

How did life get multicellular? Five simple organisms could have the answer

Single-celled species that often stick together in colonies have researchers rethinking the origin of animals.

go.nature.com

Max Haase @maxhaase.bsky.social · Aug 8

People who upload preprints without the supplemental materials should go straight to jail

Reposted by Max Haase

Geraldine Butler @yeastpi.bsky.social · Aug 1

New preprint from lab adding to recent interest in yeast centromeres. There are dramatic changes in structure, but location is conserved www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Centromeres in budding yeasts are conserved in chromosomal location but not in structure.

The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has ‘point’ centromeres, which are much smaller and simpler than centromeres of most other eukaryotes and have a defined DNA sequence. Other yeast taxa have ...

www.biorxiv.org

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Max Haase @maxhaase.bsky.social · Aug 1

Wonderful work! I am looking forward to reading it in more depth after my holiday.

Reposted by Max Haase

Andrea Musacchio @andrea-musacchio.bsky.social · Jul 31

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

Molecular requirements for PLK1 activation by T-loop phosphorylation

Activation of PLK1, a master mitotic kinase, requires phosphorylation of its activation segment on Thr210, within a basic consensus sequence for Aurora kinases. Aurora B-dependent phosphorylation of T...

www.biorxiv.org

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Max Haase @maxhaase.bsky.social · Jul 25

I think it shouldn’t have been retracted. Like you say, most interpretations in papers will later be shown to so-so or plain wrong. So are we to retract papers for these reasons. Seems absurd. I think it’s good to assume good faith of the authors.

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Max Haase @maxhaase.bsky.social · Jul 25

Thanks Benjamin, I also very much enjoyed your epic on yeast metabolic structural evo!

Max Haase @maxhaase.bsky.social · Jul 25

Carl Sagan too fails his own standards, he did huge damage to the public’s understanding of history with his nonsense cosmos episode on Hypatia and the Library of Alexandria.

Reposted by Max Haase

Duccio Conti @duccioconti.bsky.social · Jul 16

Finally out! Check out our new work on how M18BP1, known so far to be important for the epigenetic maintenance of centromeres, supports chromosome condensation when the cell enters mitosis. We also uncover a regulatory ménage á trois between condensin II, M18BP1 and MCPH1.

Condensin II activation by M18BP1

Condensin I and II promote the drastic spatial rearrangement of the human genome upon mitotic entry. While condensin II is known to initiate this proc…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Max Haase @maxhaase.bsky.social · Jul 14

Midea?

Max Haase @maxhaase.bsky.social · Jul 14

yes!

Max Haase @maxhaase.bsky.social · Jul 14

tantamount to scientific malpractice imo

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Reposted by Max Haase

🧬Jacob L Steenwyk @jlsteenwyk.bsky.social · Jul 10

NEW pub: The role of metabolism in shaping #enzyme structures over 400 million years. Now out in @nature.com

Super grateful to have played a small role in this project - congrats to lead/corr authors Oliver, Benjamin, and Markus!

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

#alphafold #evolution #genomics

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Reposted by Max Haase

HittingerLab @hittingerlab.bsky.social · Jul 10

We have an opening for postdoctoral training! Please apply by 15th August 2025 for full consideration. Here is the ad: hittinger.genetics.wisc.edu/People/Join/...

hittinger.genetics.wisc.edu

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Reposted by Max Haase

Ben Heineike @heineikeb.bsky.social · Jul 10

A paper I have been working on with Oliver Lemke in the Ralser lab has just come out: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We used predicted structures to gain insight into the evolution of metabolic proteins in yeast.

A bit more in this linked-in post (www.linkedin.com/posts/benjam...).

The role of metabolism in shaping enzyme structures over 400 million years - Nature

By combining structural biology and evolutionary genomics analyses, the evolution of enzymes over 400 million years is shown to be governed by catalytic function, metabolic network architecture, cost ...

www.nature.com

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Max Haase @maxhaase.bsky.social · Jul 11

Congrats! I am looking forward to hearing about this work in Paris!

Reposted by Max Haase

Fernando Villanea @fervillanea.bsky.social · Jul 9

This is a good time to remember that Moas, Emus, and the other ratites diverged so long ago, they FLEW to different continents, and then lost the ability to fly and became giants independently. You can't just sprinkle a few variants to make one into the other.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Maps of continents breaking apart does not match the order in which flightless birds speciate, which indicates they flew over water rather than walk across a mega continent.

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Max Haase @maxhaase.bsky.social · Jul 10

Oh sorry I didn’t see that :(

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Max Haase @maxhaase.bsky.social · Jul 10

FYI the USDA culture collection has this species and many more. They will send it to you for free (typically) just need to provide a shipping label.
nrrl.ncaur.usda.gov

Welcome to the ARS Culture Collection (NRRL) | ARS Culture Collection

nrrl.ncaur.usda.gov

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