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Reposted by Rog lab at the University of Utah

American Society for Cell Biology @ascbiology.bsky.social · 21d

🎉 Congratulations to Needhi Bhalla, UC Santa Cruz (www.bhallalab.com
), named a 2025 #ASCB Fellow! This honor celebrates her outstanding contributions to cell biology, leadership, & service. Fellows will be recognized at #CellBio2025 in Philadelphia this December. #CellBiology

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Reposted by Rog lab at the University of Utah

EMBL DB unit @embldbunit.bsky.social · Mar 27

Only a few days left to register to attend virtually the @embl.org symposium on the "Wild Frontier of Model Systems". Don't miss this opportunity if you are interested in exploring unconventional model organisms for a better understanding of biology, ecology and evolution

EMBL Events @events.embl.org · Mar 26

💻 Register to attend #EESWildModels virtually! ➡️ s.embl.org/ees25-02

✅ Access talks at your convenience, live or later
✅ Ask questions
✅ Network

🧬🦈🌿 Learn how exploring the wild frontiers of model systems is increasing our understanding of the biology, ecology, and evolution of organisms.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Mar 5

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Canada goose fights off bald eagle in rare, symbolism-laden battle on ice

Photographer captures 20-minute clash between birds emblematic of Canada and US amid high trade tensions

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Rog lab at the University of Utah

University of Utah School of Biological Sciences @uofubiology.bsky.social · Feb 27

News! @theroglab.bsky.social Gordon et al. discovers synaptonemal complex wets & aligns chromosomes, a crucial step in sexual reproduction, where errors in chromosome# can be fatal to the embryo. @utah.edu

Read in Science Advances
www.science.org/doi/full/10....

The synaptonemal complex aligns meiotic chromosomes by wetting

During sexual reproduction, the synaptonemal complex aligns the maternal and paternal chromosomes by wetting.

www.science.org

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Reposted by Rog lab at the University of Utah

Abby Dernburg @adernburg.bsky.social · Feb 21

I hope that everyone in the private sector who depends on federal grants to train their researchers and staff, pay for their services and products, or benefits in any other way from federal funding will come out to #standupforscience!

Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.bsky.social · Feb 21

📣 TWO WEEKS UNTIL WE STAND UP FOR SCIENCE! 📣

On March 7th, we’re Standing Up for Science in DC & ALL 50 STATES to make our voices heard. We hope you’ll join us! ☀️

#sciencenotsilence #scienceforall #standupforscience2025

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Reposted by Rog lab at the University of Utah

MAYosis @mayosis.bsky.social · Jan 30

Ofer Rog @theroglab.bsky.social from @utah.edu will talk about "Regulating sister interactions during meiosis" on May 21st

Learn more about Dr. Rog's work :
theroglab.org

--> Register here: meiosis.cornell.edu/mayosis2025/...

The Rog Lab

The Rog Lab, headed by Dr. Ofer Rog, is located at the Department of Biology in the University of Utah at Salt Lake City, and uses C. elegans and yeast to study meiosis, sexual reproduction and chrom...

theroglab.org

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Jan 15

Much more inside. As usual, hit us up if you have any feedback!

Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Jan 15

Finally, we used our kinetic information to derive the total number of DSBs. We found an average of 40 DSBs per nucleus in wild-type meiosis suggesting a ratio of 7:1 of DSBs to crossovers, and more DSBs in mutant scenarios.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Jan 15

Second, strand invasion kinetics were similar for repair events templated by the homolog versus the sister. This was surprising, since a leading hypothesis is that DSBs that don't find the homologs stall and are only repaired at the end of meiosis using the sister chromatid.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Jan 15

We made 3 crucial findings. First, we found that most repair events finish the strand-invasion step in 1-2 hours. This is true for both endogenous (SPO-11-induced) and irradiation-induced DSBs.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Jan 15

The inspiration was beautiful work by Sarit and Nicola, who used auxin-mediated degradation of SPO-11 to extinguish new meiotic DSBs. We used a cytological marker - RAD-51 - which marks strand-invasion and quantified the kinetics of their disappearance.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36170820/

Continuous double-strand break induction and their differential processing sustain chiasma formation during Caenorhabditis elegans meiosis - PubMed

Faithful chromosome segregation into gametes depends on Spo11-induced DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs). These yield single-stranded 3' tails upon resection to promote crossovers (COs). While early Mre1...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Jan 15

New preprint from the lab! We defined the kinetics of strand invasion during meiosis in C. elegans. Great work from Antonia, Henry and Divya.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Nov 10

Looking for a summer undergraduate research opportunity? Come work with us! Apply to SPUR at the University of Utah - it including a stipend and funds for travel and housing:
our.utah.edu/research-sch...
our.utah.edu/spur/underst...
Reach out if you have any questions!

Summer Program for Undergraduate Research (SPUR) - Office of Undergraduate Research

SPUR is a nationally competitive opportunity that provides undergraduate students with an intensive 10-week summer research experience under the mentorship of a University of Utah…

our.utah.edu

Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Jul 1

We’d love to get feedback and suggestions. Kudos to Kewei, an amazing grad student who developed CheC-PLS over the last 5 years; to Chloe and Lexy (now with her own lab, new-car-smell and all, at UMinnesota); and to Lisa and a super-talented undergrad, Kaan.

Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Jul 1

So Skp1 has been moonlighting for >100 million years. Which adds a new twist to the SC paradox: how does a highly conserved protein (Skp1) maintains intimate interaction with quickly diverging proteins in a way that does not leave a clear evolutionary mark in their sequence?

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Jul 1

In both nematode, Skp1 is not only necessary for assembly of the SC onto chromosomes - without dimerization-competent Skp1, SC proteins are absent.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Jul 1

Lisa turned to the distantly related nematode P. pacificus, and found that the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. Ppa-SKR-1 localize to the middle of the SC, and a conserved dimerization interface in Skp1 is specifically required for SC assembly in Pristi, as it is in elegans.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Jul 1

Recently, Yumi Kim's lab made an intriguing discovery: Skp1, a conserved subunit of the SCF ubiquitin ligase complex (SKR-1 in C. elegans), moonlights as a structural component of the SC. Lisa decided to test whether this function is conserved. 10.1126/sciadv.adl4876

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Jul 1

On the other hand, the protein sequence is incredibly divergent between and within clades, so much so that the genes had to be independently cloned in different model organisms. (More on that in Lisa’s previous paper.) elifesciences.org/articles/30823

Live cell-lineage tracing and machine learning reveal patterns of organ regeneration

A combination of live cell tracking, cell-lineage tracing and machine learning shows that injured sensory organs repair accurately regardless of the extent of damage.

elifesciences.org

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Jul 1

#3: Skp1 in the SC. SC proteins have intriguing evolutionary history: they build a highly conserved structure AND (almost) all subunits are co-dependent for assembly.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Jul 1

That has crucial implications: ZHP-3 can sample the entire 6um chromosome in tens of minutes, whereas SYP-3 cannot. By extension, ZHP-3 is capable of efficiently transducing a crossover signal, whereas SYP-3 would be unlikely to.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Jul 1

The second important finding came from comparing the diffusion of an SC component (SYP-3) vs a regulator of crossovers (ZHP-3). ZHP-3 diffuses 4-9 times faster than SYP-3 (depending on meiotic stage).

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Jul 1

(Black-boxing some amazing tech here; check out the preprint for details.) This finding confirmed a crucial aspect of the coarsening hypothesis.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Jul 1

However, a crucial piece of this model has not been tested: do molecules diffuse within the SC? Lexy directly tested that. By sparsely labeling SC components and crossover regulators, she was able to observe single molecules in live gonads.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · Jul 1

This idea, and beautiful data from worms and plants (from Raphael Mercier, Chris Morgan and others) suggested coarsening regulates genetic exchanges (crossovers).

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