Spaces filling up for our @bsdb.bsky.social GRT symposium @mrc-lms.bsky.social on environment, metabolism and stem cell development 4th Dec 2025! Updated poster with talk titles below. Register here: www.symposia.org.uk/courses/stem...

Looking forward to seeing you there!

🚨Symposium alert! 🚨 Next edition of our biennial stem cell symposium is 4th Dec 2025 - focus on metabolism and development. Sponsored by @bsdb.bsky.social. Great lineup of speakers, hosted @mrc-lms.bsky.social in London. Registration is open.

www.symposia.org.uk/courses/stem...

The nucleolus....large, rather boring organelle in the nucleus? No! Our review led by @bryonyleeke.bsky.social just out @dev-journal.bsky.social, highlighting new findings on nucleoli dynamics in development, intriguing roles in chromatin organisation & more.

journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Tell me you're a science parent without saying anything...thanks for the new calculator @alexisbarr.bsky.social

The @mrc-lms.bsky.social is recruiting for Programme Leader Track (PLT) group leaders - come work with us! Supportive and collaborative colleagues, fascinating mechanistic science, generous funding and facilities, and a new building with nice views of London 😍 shorturl.at/VuVxX

Heading home after the @embl.org PhD symposium #biologyoutsidethebox - real pleasure to talk a bit on our work #beyondthedogma on TEs & also share about being a women in science. Loads of cool talks from v.diverse topics! #dinosaurDNA . Thanks for the invite!!

Noxa KO in ESCs reduces Dux-dependent apoptosis and is even upregulated in the muscular dystrophy, FSHD, which is driven by DUX4 mis-expression. It’ll be interesting in future to look at therapeutic NOXA reduction in FSHD myoblasts. (7/8)

What about cell death? Maintained expression of Dux causes toxicity in many cell types, and 2C arrest in embryos. We find Dux-driven toxicity to be MERVL independent, and identify Noxa as a Dux-specific target contributing to apoptosis. (6/8)

Yet: MERVL-induced 2C-like cells have the same expanded fate potential as Dux/control 2C-like cells. This means a core set of MERVL-dependent genes is enough for this totipotency feature. Also, only MERVL-dependent, not Dux-dependent genes are downregulated upon OBOX loss, a new ZGA factor (5/8)

2C-like cells are not created equal! Dux-induced 2C-like cells mimic endogenous 2C-like cells, but MERVL-driven 2C-like cells are intermediate at gene and TE level. They also only show partial chromocentre loss and pluripotency factor downregulation (4/8)

We first established a CRISPRa system in a MERVL-GFP-CD4 reported cell line in order to specifically activate Dux or MERVL elements in order to assess MERVL contribution to the 2C transcriptome and repeatome. (3/8)

Happy to share our first #bluetorial & our latest #preprint, lead by postdoc @paulchammas.bsky.social. We used CRISPRa to disentangle the close relationship between Dux and MERVL elements in the induction of the 2-cell like state: #TEsky #MERVL www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... (1/8)