Jop Kind
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jopkind.bsky.social
Jop Kind
@jopkind.bsky.social
Scientist/PI Hubrecht Institute. Exploring gene regulation in early development and cancer. Single-cell spatial genome organization & epigenomics
6/ Together, our work links nuclear architecture, epigenetic state, and MeCP2 activity to the spatiotemporal control of long neuronal genes.

With implications for understanding Rett syndrome and broader mechanisms of cortical development.

Great collaboration with Basak (UMC Utrecht) team
🧵//
September 17, 2025 at 8:48 AM
5/ Strikingly, MeCP2’s function appears context-dependent:

• In prenatal cortex: MeCP2 promotes activation of long genes.
• In postnatal cortex: MeCP2 represses the same genes
September 17, 2025 at 8:46 AM
4/ Mechanistically, we identify MeCP2 (mutated in Rett syndrome) as a candidate regulator.
MeCP2 binds long LAD genes before they are released and transcribed, pointing to a stage-specific role in gene priming.
September 17, 2025 at 8:45 AM
3/ These long neuronal genes often detach from the nuclear lamina before activation, suggesting lamina release is an early regulatory step in corticogenesis.
This spatial reorganization aligns with their role in neurodevelopmental disorders, including ASD.
September 17, 2025 at 8:44 AM
2/ Using in utero electroporation + scDam&T-seq, we jointly profiled transcriptomes and lamina-associated domains (LADs) in embryonic cortex.

We found widespread lamina reorganization during differentiation, strongly enriched at long neuronal genes (≥100 kb).
September 17, 2025 at 8:42 AM
Reposted by Jop Kind
⚡ I developed VIS-seq with the help of dougfowler.bsky.social and others at UW Genome Sciences. Check out my preprint:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

2/9
Image-based, pooled phenotyping reveals multidimensional, disease-specific variant effects
Genetic variants often produce complex phenotypic effects that confound current assays and predictive models. We developed Variant in situ sequencing (VIS-seq), a pooled, image-based method that measures variant effects on molecular and cellular phenotypes in diverse cell types. Applying VIS-seq to ~3,000 LMNA and PTEN variants yielded high-dimensional morphological profiles that captured variant-driven changes in protein abundance, localization, activity and cell architecture. We identified gain-of-function LMNA variants that reshape the nucleus and autism-associated PTEN variants that mislocalize. Morphological profiles predicted variant pathogenicity with near-perfect accuracy and distinguished autism-linked from tumor syndrome-linked PTEN variants. Most variants impacted a multidimensional continuum of phenotypes not recapitulated by any single functional readout. By linking protein variation to cell images at scale, we illuminate how variant effects cascade from molecular to subcellular to cell morphological phenotypes, providing a framework for resolving the complexity of variant function. ### Competing Interest Statement FPR is an advisor and shareholder in Constantiam Biosciences. National Human Genome Research Institute, https://ror.org/00baak391, RM1HG010461, R01HG013025 National Institute of General Medical Sciences, R35GM152106 National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, https://ror.org/012pb6c26, K99HL177347, R01HL171174, R01HL164675 Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (United States), CZIF2024-010284, CP-2-1-Fowler Brotman Baty Institute, https://ror.org/03jxvbk42, CC28 United States Department of Veterans Affairs, I01BX006428, IK2BX004642 Novo Nordisk Foundation, https://ror.org/04txyc737, Alex's Lemonade Stand for Childhood Cancer RUNX1 Foundation
www.biorxiv.org
July 7, 2025 at 2:44 AM
Reposted by Jop Kind
🌎 LMNA variant ➡️ structure ➡️ abundance and localization ➡️ function! VIS-seq maps LMNA variant effects across scales of cellular organization and discovered a new subset of gain-of-function LMNA variants.

7/9
July 7, 2025 at 2:44 AM
Beautiful work Grace!! Congratulations!
July 3, 2025 at 7:26 PM