Inspired by the all the amazing science at the Argonaute meeting, I painted an argonaut!

Haven’t got enough of Argonaute in the past few days. Found more in the National Museum in Prague. It was such a great meeting!

So excited for all the fun science in the next 4 days!

Sciece is my profession but also my hobby. Another hobby of mine is watercolor and I’ve been thinking I should share more that here. Painting has big influence on how I do science and vice versa. More on this later 🎨🧬🔬🥼

In any case, the surviving progeny in ne299 is very small (~10) after one generation at 25C (upshift at L2 stage), nearly 0 when I scored only day 2 adults. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

We found that introducing the ancestral alleles of these genes back into N2 partially rescues rde-4 fertility defects at high temperature, suggesting that small RNAs buffer the deleterious effects of lab domestication! The domesticated alleles boost fitness in comfy lab but reduce stress tolerance.

Here, We found that rde-4 mutants have severe, temperature-sensitive defects in both sperm and oocyte development. Rescuing RDE-4 ONLY IN THE NEURONS partially restored fertility! Most surprisingly, we could rescue the sterility in rde-4 mutants by blocking the O2-sensing neurons!🧠->🥚

First piece result from my clay class:

😂 very standard technique in C. elegans lab. It gives much control and precision (discretion advised)

I made a thing in my art class today! 🪱🔬 #celegans #worm

Tried my first art class yesterday. My teacher said that I have a double life - science by day, painting by night. But I thought, in many ways, they aren’t all that different: in both, we reveal the light by creating contrast (ruling out alternative explanations). Loved every moment of it!

10/12 Finally, we found that pals-22 regulates the expression of germline Argonuates, affecting germline mortality upon heat stress typically linked to defective epigenetic inheritance.

9/12 Interestingly, removing both pals-22 and endo-siRNA causes DOWNregulation of immune genes, suggesting a non-canonical role of siRNAs in promoting gene expression in the absence of pals-22!!

8/12 When we removed pals-22 alone, immune genes are massively upregulated. Similarly, removing components of the endogenous siRNA pathway, immune genes are upregulated, indicating that immune genes are normally targeted by RNAi.

7/12 we also found that removing the mysterious argonaute VSRA-1, which had no clear function, rescues pals-22(-) silencing phenotype AND interestingly, loss of pals-22 causes HUGE upregulation of vsra-1, changing its activity and tissue specificity!

6/12 Let’s take a few steps back…First, we found that PALS-22 suppresses the antiviral RNAi pathway that involves DRH-1 (RIG-I homolog in worm)! Removing drh-1 or RdRP rescues pals-22’s silencing phenotype.

4/12 One of the members, PALS-22, has been found to be a potent suppressor of the transcriptional response against intracellular pathogens (namely virus and microsporidia) but the loss of pals-22 also causes downregulation of transgenes - hinting at a role in RNAi-mediated gene silencing!

Post a non-religious photo you think of as holy

WIP