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Reposted by Piotr Ziolkowski

Aurora Ruiz-Herrera @aruizherrera.bsky.social · 6d

🚨 New from our lab in #ScienceAdvances!

RAD21L cohesin acts as both a 3D genome architect and a transcriptional gatekeeper in the male germline. Its loss disrupts both structure and function—highlighting the tight link between genome folding and gene regulation

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

Meiotic cohesin RAD21L shapes 3D genome structure and transcription in the male germline

Deletion of the meiotic subunit RAD21L alters 3D chromatin structure and transcription in the mammalian male germ line.

www.science.org

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Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · 7d

Sure!!! Meiosis rules!
Fingers crossed for your paper 🤞

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Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · 7d

A great story from @chloegirard.bsky.social, confirming and extending our findings on how interhomolog polymorphism shapes crossover distribution in plants 🌱

Chloe Girard, PhD @chloegirard.bsky.social · 7d

🚨 First pre-print from my team !!

TL;DR: presence of polymorphism (sequence differences between the homologous chromosomes) can *increase* the local rate of recombination in Arabidopsis thaliana, turning cold regions of the genome hot (purple v. grey) !

The recombination frequency (cM/Mb) along chromosome 4 of A. thaliana (female meiosis).

In full hybrids (grey), where polymorphism is distributed all along chromosomes, most crossovers occur in the regions surrounding the Centromere (Cen), and very few at chromosome ends (Tel: telomeres).

In lines where polymorphism is restricted to chromosome ends (purple), the local recombination rate increases drastically, at the expense of the non-polymorphic regions (yellow).

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Reposted by Piotr Ziolkowski

Kinga Kamieniarz-Gdula @stoplab.bsky.social · 9d

Please consider signing a petition to increase the spending on science in Poland / List otwarty w sprawie finansowania nauki, w tym @ncn.gov.pl www.petycjeonline.com/list_otwarty...

List otwarty do Prezydenta RP, Marszałka Sejmu RP, Marszałka Senatu RP, Prezesa Rady Ministrów oraz Wiceprezesów Rady Ministrów w sprawie finansowania nauki, w tym zwłaszcza Narodowego Centrum Nauki

Szanowni Państwo, W niniejszej petycji prezentujemy List otwarty, który będzie wysłany do Kancelarii Prezydenta, Marszałków Sejmu i Senatu, Prezesa Rady Ministr&oacut...

www.petycjeonline.com

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Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · 11d

🚀 We’re hiring a Postdoc!

Join our group in Poznan, Poland to study meiotic crossover recombination in plants 🌱 Highly motivated & enthusiastic candidates are welcome!
📅 Deadline: Nov 1, 2025

🔗 ibmib.web.amu.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Postdoc_position-2025-Ziolkowskis-Lab.pdf

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Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · 13d

Holliday junction–ZMM feedback ensures meiotic crossover assurance in yeast! Great work from the Joao Matos lab!
👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Holliday junction–ZMM protein feedback enables meiotic crossover assurance - Nature

Holliday junctions maintain chromosome synapsis to enable crossover assurance in budding yeast.

www.nature.com

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Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · 13d

Fantastic work coming out of Neil Hunter’s lab! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Protecting double Holliday junctions ensures crossing over during meiosis - Nature

Conditional ablation experiments show that key components of the synaptonemal complex protect double Holliday junction recombination intermediates to ensure their resolution into crossover products, which are required for accurate chromosome segregation during meiosis.

www.nature.com

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Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · 18d

Thrilled to see our paper featured on the cover!!! 🎉🌽

Nature Plants @natplants.nature.com · 18d

The September issue is now complete and fully online:

www.nature.com/nplants/volu...

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Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · 18d

Thank you so much, Ian! 🙏 I’m really happy I had the chance to work with you to discover this phenomenon ✨, and now to confirm it in a crop as well! 🌽🎉

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Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · 25d

Thank you so much!

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Reposted by Piotr Ziolkowski

Camille Roux @crouxevo.bsky.social · 26d

Hybridization and introgression are major evolutionary processes. Since the 1940s, the prevailing view has been that they shape plants far more than animals. In our new study (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
), we find the opposite: animals exchange genes more, and for longer, than plants

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Reposted by Piotr Ziolkowski

PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · Jul 31

Paper led by @movillome.bsky.social on unbiased detection of (somatic) #TE insertions in #Arabidopsis with @pacbio.bsky.social long reads out after peer review. Thanks to academic editor Leandro Quadrana for shepherding it through the review process.
#plantscience
link.springer.com/article/10.1...?

Long-read detection of transposable element mobilization in the soma of hypomethylated Arabidopsis thaliana individuals - Genome Biology

Background Because transposable elements (TEs) can cause heritable genetic changes, past work on TE mobility in Arabidopsis thaliana has mostly focused on new TE insertions in the germline of hypometh...

link.springer.com

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Reposted by Piotr Ziolkowski

Ian Henderson @hendersi.bsky.social · May 30

A three year postdoctoral position is available in my group, investigating plant centromere structure, function and evolution @camplantsci.bsky.social
www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/51488/

Research Assistant / Research Associate (Fixed Term) - Job Opportunities - University of Cambridge

Research Assistant / Research Associate (Fixed Term) in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge.

www.jobs.cam.ac.uk

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Reposted by Piotr Ziolkowski

Claudia Köhler @claudiakohler11.bsky.social · Apr 17

Very happy to have contributed to this collaborative work, with main drivers Marion Orsucci and Adrien Sicard:
Sexual selection drives the speciation of lineages with contrasting mating systems: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Sexual selection drives the speciation of lineages with contrasting mating systems

Repeated shifts in ecological strategies often lead to consistent speciation patterns across phylogenies. One example is the transition from outcrossi…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by Piotr Ziolkowski

Etienne Bucher 🌾🧬🇪🇺 @plantepigenetics.ch · Aug 11

Here’s an interesting new paper on ROS1, an enzyme that removes DNA methylation and that is POSITIVELY controlled by DNA methylation.
It’s repression during heat stress 🥵🌱 is crucial to suppress transposon mobility! 🧬
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Plants repress ROS1 expression to attenuate heat-induced transposon burst - Nature Plants

Plants suppress the DNA demethylase ROS1 under heat stress to limit transposon activation, preventing genome instability. This conserved mechanism balances stress adaptation with genome protection.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Piotr Ziolkowski

Rajiv McCoy @rajivmccoy.bsky.social · Apr 7

Aneuploidy is the leading cause of pregnancy loss. In work led by @saracarioscia.bsky.social and @aabiddanda.bsky.social, we reanalyzed genetic testing data from 139,416 IVF embryos to discover variants associated with recombination phenotypes and aneuploidy risk. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Reposted by Piotr Ziolkowski

eLife @elife.bsky.social · 28d

Cryogenic electron microscopy has been used to determine the detailed structure of an intermediate state called a “D-loop” that forms when strands of DNA are exchanged during homologous recombination.
buff.ly/pZZfIso

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Reposted by Piotr Ziolkowski

Charlotte Wright @charlottewright.bsky.social · 27d

How many chromosomes can an animal have?

In our paper out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social we show that the Atlas blue butterfly has 229 chromosome pairs- the highest in diploid Metazoa! These arose by rapid autosome fragmentation while sex chromosomes stayed intact.
www.cell.com/current-biol...

Constraints on chromosome evolution revealed by the 229 chromosome pairs of the Atlas blue butterfly

The genome of the Atlas blue butterfly contains ten times more chromosomes than most butterflies, and more than any other known diploid animal. Wright et al. show that this extraordinary karyotype is ...

tinyurl.com

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Reposted by Piotr Ziolkowski

Kierzkowski Lab @kierzkowskilab.bsky.social · Dec 18

Do you want to know how to live-image internal floral organs with confocal microscope for up to 2 weeks?
Check out our protocol:
bio-protocol.org/en/bpdetail?...
#Arabidopsis #Flower

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Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · Sep 7

Interesting approach!

Reposted by Piotr Ziolkowski

wcrismani.bsky.social @wcrismani.bsky.social · Sep 5

Thrilled to share our latest work on meiotic recombination, where we mapped rates and distributions by sequencing thousands of individual sperm. This study was led by Stevan Novakovic and @caitlinharris.bsky.social , in collaboration with @davisjmcc.bsky.social and Cynthia Liu.

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Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · Sep 5

Thanks Wayne!🙏

Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · Sep 4

Thrilled to see such a thoughtful commentary on our paper by Maria Cuacos & Stefan Heckmann 🙌 Many thanks! 🔬🙏

Nature Plants @natplants.nature.com · Sep 3

New OA Article: "Enhancing local meiotic crossovers in Arabidopsis and maize through juxtaposition of heterozygous and homozygous regions" rdcu.be/eDWJI

With News & Views: "Diversity favoured: heterozygosity attracts crossovers" rdcu.be/eDWKQ

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Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · Sep 2

This work was made possible through a great collaboration with Mikhail Mikhailov from Moldova 🇲🇩 and the fantastic efforts of all co-authors – special thanks to @franz_boideau, @SzymanskaLejman and Vasile Botnari 👏🌱

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Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · Sep 2

Breaking genetics news‼️🌱🌽 A natural DNA trick triples recombination in maize. What we first saw in Arabidopsis (@hendersi lab) a decade ago is now confirmed in crops—opening new doors for plant breeding. Published today in Nature Plants! More details 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Enhancing local meiotic crossovers in Arabidopsis and maize through juxtaposition of heterozygous and homozygous regions - Nature Plants

This study discovered that locally confined DNA differences boost crossover rates in both Arabidopsis and maize, revealing a conserved mechanism that can accelerate plant breeding and trait introgress...

www.nature.com

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