Nat Walker-Hale

An unconventional Rubisco small subunit underpins the CO2-concentrating organelle in land plants In many algae, photosynthesis is boosted by biophysical CO2-concentrating mechanisms, which pack the CO2-fixing enzyme Rubisco into liquid-like organelles called pyrenoids. Engineering C3 crops with a...

Our work on #hornwort #pyrenoids is finally out in @science.org! 🎉 We uncovered how hornworts pack their Rubisco into pyrenoids and successfully recreated them in Arabidopsis. A key step toward engineering more efficient photosynthesis in crops @btiscience.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Yellow bird with black face and red eye, all puffed out and slightly damp.

Let me start a belated thread of Aotearoa New Zealand silvan birds.

To lead things off, a New Zealand Bellbird photographed on Kapiti Island.

A dual role of Arabidopsis PAL nuclear localization in fine tuning flavonoid biosynthesis PAL’s dual localization links metabolism with transcription, revealing feedback that fine-tunes phenylpropanoid regulation.

Interesting paper: Metabolic enzyme PAL can go into the nucleus in response to high product build up and sequester an activating TF of the pathway, thus acting as a feedback inhibition loop.

From: www.science.org/doi/full/10....
#PlantScience

An unconventional Rubisco small subunit underpins the CO2-concentrating organelle in land plants In many algae, photosynthesis is boosted by biophysical CO2-concentrating mechanisms, which pack the CO2-fixing enzyme Rubisco into liquid-like organelles called pyrenoids. Engineering C3 crops with a...

An unconventional Rubisco small subunit underpins the CO2-concentrating organelle in land plants www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @science.org

@pratikkatte.bsky.social and I just released Lorax 🌲, a tool for interactive exploration of biobank-scale ancestral recombination graphs (ARGs).

If you’ve ever wanted to scroll across the ancestries of thousands of genomes… this is for you.

Genome-wide association study and transcriptomics reveal the genetic architecture of alkalinity tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.01.708912v1

A sedge. It may look unassuming but its genome has several unusual features.

Why do the chromosomes of cyperids (sedges & rushes) split and fuse so regularly on evolutionary timescales?

Is it because they have so many centromeres?

Our new preprint, the first major paper of my PhD, addresses this question. 🧵⬇️ 1/12

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

We are very excited to share a new resource from our team: spatial subcellular proteome maps in plants! We developed an MS-based method that registers localizations of about 8000 proteins in Arabidopsis roots in a single experiment.

(1/9)
www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

Excited to share our new preprint! 🍇🧬

We analyzed 639 genomes across 48 grape species to understand how hybridization drives adaptation.

• ~14% of average Vitis genome is introgressed

• Most parallel adaptations are shared via gene flow

• Two "hybrid species" are actually hybrid swarms

Regulatory features determine the evolutionary fate of laterally acquired genes in plants Abstract. Lateral gene transfer (LGT) is widespread in eukaryotes, including in animals and plants where it can fuel adaptive evolution and innovation. How

Awesome to see @cfcollins.bsky.social first paper out from her PhD - a huge amount of work!!

Regulatory features determine the evolutionary fate of laterally acquired genes in plants url: academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

MBE | The evolutionary genomics of meiotic drive Meiotic drivers gain transmission advantages by distorting equal, Mendelian segregation. This review discusses the evolutionary genomics of meiotic drive. The figure highlights the interactions of meiotic drive elements with other classes of selfish genetic elements including: direct interactions between drivers and transposable elements (TEs) (A) or satellites (C) that can facilitate the spread of drivers; other drive systems that cause the mutual destruction of all gametes (B; e.g. the presence of multiple toxin-antidote systems); indirect interactions where the host machinery responsible for silencing TEs are recruited to silence drivers (D); dosage-sensitive interactions involving sex-linked drivers that result in gene amplifications (E); and tradeoffs between suppressing drive and TEs (F).

For a new MBE Review, Presgraves et al. argue that many features of genome evolution, content, and organization seemingly inexplicable by adaptation or nearly neutral processes are instead best accounted for by meiotic drive.

🔗 academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

#evobio #molbio

Love Donncha O'Callaghan going in to bat for Jack Crowley.

Willy Wonka reference is on point.

So I pleased to announce the conceptual spawn of FigTree: PearTree (acronym still to be finalised). If you want to dive right in it is hosted as a web app here: artic-network.github.io/peartree (click the “Example...” button for immediate candy and then click every button you can find).

A cellular basis for the mammalian nocturnal-diurnal switch Early mammals were nocturnal while dinosaurs dominated the daytime. Mammalian transition to daytime activity accelerated after the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, but the underlying mechanisms remain...

Since I moved to @mrclmb.bsky.social I’ve been trying to answer this: Why are some mammals active at night and others in the day? Today our answer is out @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/....
If you’re interested in circadian biology, evolution or how timing shapes physiology, take a look

Post doc position in Evolutionary biology and bioinformatics - work environment: This postdoctoral position will be supervised by Aline Muyle and hosted at the Institute of Evolutionary Sciences of Montpellier (ISEM), within the CHANGE department and the Plant Reproductive Strategies (SRP) team.

Hiring a Postdoc to study polyploidy in Silene latifolia using RNA-seq/DNA-seq. Contract: May-Jul 2026, 18 months. Apply by March 24, 2026. Info: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/412961 #postdoc

Multi-tissue metabolic GWAS and drought-responsive multi-omics reveal the genetic basis of the quinoa metabolome https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.25.706111v1

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Announcing the publication of TAIR12: Consult the fully reannotated genome on the European Nucleotide Archive - Phoenix Bioinformatics TAIR (The Arabidopsis Information Resource), together with our nonprofit host Phoenix Bioinformatics, is pleased to announce the public release of TAIR12

🎉📣 #TAIR12, the latest reannotation of the Arabidopsis thaliana genome, is now available under accession number PRJEB100887 on ENA and NCBI!

Thank you all the volunteer researchers whose hard work has made this possible!

#plantscience #plantbiology 🧪

bit.ly/3ZHtneT

🌾 We have an open postdoc position in Plant Genomics in our group at HHU Düsseldorf!

If you enjoy computational biology, asking big questions, and the satisfaction of code working on the first try, check out schneebergerlab.org/career/

Apply by Mar. 31 | 3-year postdoc | German skills required

So excited to share this manuscript led by the inimitable Cara Brand, who discovered that Topoisomerase II evolution causes hybrid female lethality in Drosophila.

Congrats to Cara, @nickbr0wn.bsky.social, Anirban, and
@buszczaklab.bsky.social!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Proposed working model of the bZIP48-MYB96 module regulates cuticular wax synthesis in response to cold stress in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Transcription factor bZIP48‐MYB96 module positively regulates cuticular wax synthesis by directly activating KCSs and CER3 genes in response to cold stress

Liu et al.

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/SGWEJC...

Our preprint on sex determination in Cannabis - now updated with a strata analysis and new gene expression data.
Great collaboration with @tatianagiraud.bsky.social and her team!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Delighted to share our new preprint: "Evolution of moss leaf-like organs through variations in deeply conserved developmental principles."
Led by Ph.D. student Wenye Lin from my lab @irbv.bsky.social ,
in collab. with Yoan Coudert (ENS Lyon) and Richard Smith (JIC).
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Reading a paper and thinking "that's a beautiful structure visualisation" and finding they've listed the exact ChimeraX settings in the supplement 🤌

🚨Job Alert – Please RT!
We’re looking for bright minds to join our community!
We are looking for 12 postdocs and 7 PhD students!
Details on all projects and application: www.ceplas.eu/en/training-...
@leibnizipk.bsky.social @mpipz.bsky.social @hhu.de @fz-juelich.de @unicologne.bsky.social

Congratulations to @stepbystepsolution.bsky.social to the manuscript on genome annotation of 200 insect genomes, a result his work within of @gevol.bsky.social ! doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Pseudogenes document protracted parallel regression of oral anatomy in myrmecophagous mammals Abstract. Adaptation to ant and/or termite consumption (myrmecophagy) in mammals constitutes a textbook example of convergent evolution, being independentl

Emerling, @freddelsuc.bsky.social et al. investigated candidate genes related to dentition, gustation, and mastication in nine convergent myrmecophagous mammalian lineages, finding that convergent evolution of myrmecophagy was a protracted process.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag009

#evobio #molbio

Today in robots.

github.com/matplotlib/m...

crabby-rathbun.github.io/mjrathbun-we...

A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand The emergence of a chemical system capable of self-replication and evolution is a critical event in the origin of life. RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but their large size and structural ...

A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... - this looks super cool, but does it really relate to the origin of life?

Inducing novel endosymbioses by implanting bacteria in fungi - Nature A study presents an approach to establish and track a new endosymbiotic partnership by implanting bacteria in a non-host fungus and shows that stable inheritance of the implanted bacteria is possible ...

Vorholt Lab re-created endosymbiosis in the lab: injected bacteria into a fungus and evolved a heritable partnership.

Evolution, fast-forwarded.

doi.org/10.1038/s415...