Pierre Bourguet
p-bourguet.bsky.social
Pierre Bourguet
@p-bourguet.bsky.social
Epigenetics, transposable elements, plant biology.
Postdoc @ Gregor Mendel Institute (Vienna, Austria).
@gmivienna.bsky.social
Pinned
How is epigenetic information inherited? We found that CDCA7 proteins are critical players in the inheritance of DNA methylation at CG sites in plants, and this is true both in the lab and in the wild. How does this work? 🧵👇
New paper! Work led by @p-bourguet.bsky.social and Frédéric Berger at the GMI of the @oeaw.bsky.social and @esasaki007.bsky.social identified how protein CDCA7 helps plants stably maintain epigenetic modifications across generations.

Read more: www.oeaw.ac.at/gmi/detail/n...
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
Having a lot of fun at #EMBOMobileGenome 😃
Perfect timing for our paper from the lab of @toddmacfarlan.bsky.social to be out @natcomms.nature.com!!

…and I’m currently on the job market looking for a new scientific home!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Young KRAB-zinc finger gene clusters are highly dynamic incubators of ERV-driven genetic heterogeneity in mice - Nature Communications
KRAB-zinc finger proteins repress retrotransposons and rapidly evolve in mammals. Here, the authors show that ERV insertions drive the emergence and diversification of new KZFP genes in mice, revealin...
www.nature.com
November 6, 2025 at 9:40 AM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

@soreklab.bsky.social Sorek lab does it again! Such a cool signal to specifically detect the event of genome degradation by a phage
Bacteria sense virus-induced genome degradation via methylated mononucleotides
Phages often degrade the genome of their bacterial host to individual nucleotides and use these nucleotides to build their own genome. In this study, we describe a bacterial defense system that direct...
www.biorxiv.org
November 8, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
Some impressions from the rather fabulous #EMBOmobilegenome Mobile Genome meeting in Heidelberg
Morning walk through the woods, exciting panel discussion, flash talks, lab community, drosophila friends, …
@events.embl.org

The transposon community is going very strong. see you all again in 2027!!
November 7, 2025 at 7:38 AM
How is epigenetic information inherited? We found that CDCA7 proteins are critical players in the inheritance of DNA methylation at CG sites in plants, and this is true both in the lab and in the wild. How does this work? 🧵👇
New paper! Work led by @p-bourguet.bsky.social and Frédéric Berger at the GMI of the @oeaw.bsky.social and @esasaki007.bsky.social identified how protein CDCA7 helps plants stably maintain epigenetic modifications across generations.

Read more: www.oeaw.ac.at/gmi/detail/n...
November 7, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
🚨 First pre-print from my team !!

TL;DR: presence of polymorphism (sequence differences between the homologous chromosomes) can *increase* the local rate of recombination in Arabidopsis thaliana, turning cold regions of the genome hot (purple v. grey) !
October 1, 2025 at 8:31 AM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
Happy to share the results of a long-haul post-doc project, now online @science.org, aiming at understanding the rules of transgeneration epigenetic inheritance over TEs in plants and its extent and impact in nature. More below!
doi.org/10.1126/scie...
Transposable elements are vectors of recurrent transgenerational epigenetic inheritance
DNA methylation loss at transposable elements (TEs) can affect neighboring genes and be epigenetically inherited in plants, yet the determinants and significance of this additional system of inheritan...
doi.org
September 18, 2025 at 6:35 PM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
My first first-author paper is out!🎉
Here we propose a model where a silencing complex, PIWI*, assembles on target RNAs to recruit effectors and shut down transposon activity.
Huge thanks to the Brennecke and Plaschka labs, especially Julius and Clemens, and all co-authors!
PIWI clade Argonautes are essential for transposon silencing. Without them, animals are sterile due to massive transposon activity.

But how does piRNA-guided target interaction translate into silencing?

PhD student Júlia Portell Montserrat has an intriguing answer

www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
September 17, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
🚀 Checkout our new #nextflow MNase-pipeline nucDetective

Features:
✅ MNase QC analysis
✅ high resolution nucleosome maps
✅ detect nucleosome dynamics
✅ multi-condition comparison
✅ nucleosme-repeat-length

Try it here: github.com/uschwartz...
1/2
August 29, 2025 at 8:07 AM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
BOKU University in Vienna is recruiting a full professor for Biochemistry! Check out the description below, apply and join us in beautiful Vienna.
@bokuvienna.bsky.social
🧪🧪🧪

short.boku.ac.at/53e6g6
Biochemie / Biochemistry::BOKU
short.boku.ac.at
August 25, 2025 at 7:19 AM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
Further evidence that sugar in the plates changes the plant biology you study. Best to avoid putting sugar in the agar, unless you want to study what sugar in the agar does to plants. This paper uses sugar in the agar to study what sugar does. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #plantresearch
A multisensor high-temperature signaling framework for triggering daytime thermomorphogenesis in Arabidopsis - Nature Communications
Plants encounter high temperatures concomitantly with intense sunlight during the daytime. Here, the authors reveal a concerted chloroplast and nucleus high-temperature signaling framework that gates ...
www.nature.com
August 24, 2025 at 7:45 AM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
Attention plant proteomics specialists: We are looking for a Head of our new Proteomics Unit at our international and dynamic Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology. @mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social Applications are welcome until 30. Sept 2025: jobs.mpimp-golm.mpg.de/jobposting/8...
Head of Service Unit Proteomics
jobs.mpimp-golm.mpg.de
August 23, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
Thanks for sharing! All activities were spearheaded by Roberto Torres @lcatmon.bsky.social in collaboration with the "44 Perills" association and with the support of @sesbe-org.bsky.social @eseb2025.bsky.social and @ajuntamentbcn.bsky.social. Big shout out to #eseb2025 scientists that participated!
Surely one of the all-time best conference outreach activities: an evolution-inspired decorated street for Les Festes de Gràcia #ESEB2025
August 22, 2025 at 7:12 AM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
August’s Nature Plants cover story shows how we integrated large-scale multiDAP and snRNA data to reveal drivers of cell type identity and evolution in flowering plants. www.nature.com/nplants/volu... We packed a lot into this paper! Here’s a single-cell spin on what we found:
Nature Plants - Cistromes uncovered
Transcription factors (TFs) have specific patterns of binding to gene promoter regions, which have similarities and differences within TF families and...
www.nature.com
August 19, 2025 at 11:08 PM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
Out after peer review, collaborative study from Nordborg & Weigel labs with help from many others. Not the largest collection of new Arabidopsis thaliana genomes, but we hopefully put forward some good ideas for how to think about pangenomes and their analysis!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
August 20, 2025 at 6:23 AM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
Thrilled to have our spatial single-cell atlas of the Arabidopsis lifecycle in @NaturePlants. Turns out that its easy to make nice images when spatial expression of 1,000 genes is available! 1/n
@natanellae.bsky.social @tatsuyanobori.bsky.social @joeecker.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
August 19, 2025 at 9:17 AM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
🌱 come join our lab 😀
🔬 PhD: small RNAs & plant stress (36 mo)
🧬CDD researcher: plant molecular biology (24 mo)
Apply 👇
PhD: emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/Docto...
CDD: emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...

#PlantScience #PhD #ResearchJobs#ERC#CNRS
August 5, 2025 at 10:17 AM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
Very proud of this work where we define how the MORC2 ATPase directs CpG methylation of active human L1 transposons in early development.

Thanks to co-authors, funders & wonderful environment @lundstem.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Brief thread below (do people still do that?) 1/X
MORC2 directs transcription-dependent CpG methylation of human LINE-1 transposons in early neurodevelopment
Methylation of CpG dinucleotides is essential for silencing genomic repeats such as LINE-1 retrotransposons (L1s) in the germline and soma. Evolutionarily-young L1s are transcribed in human pluripoten...
www.biorxiv.org
July 1, 2025 at 12:55 PM
I can only recommend working with Heïdi at the GReD, she is a terrific scientist and human being! Clermont-Ferrand has high quality of life, is affordable and the surrounding nature is a beauty.
Interested in Plant Genetics and Evolution? 🌱🧬

An ERC-funded Postdoctoral Position is available in our lab to investigate the mechanisms of meiotic adaptation to allopolyploidy!

Please RT 🙏
June 19, 2025 at 12:52 PM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
1/7
I am very excited to announce our🌹NEW PAPER OUT IN 𝑁𝐴𝑇𝑈𝑅𝐸!🌹
𝐃𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐕𝐄: Bimodal centromeres in pentaploid dogroses shed light on their unique meiosis
With the Ritz and Kovařík labs we show a potential role for centromeres on 𝘙𝘰𝘴𝘢 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘢 bizarre reproduction!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Bimodal centromeres in pentaploid dogroses shed light on their unique meiosis - Nature
Insights into the dogrose genome and centromeres explain their ability to achieve stable sexual reproduction.
www.nature.com
June 18, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
1/ How many hours do bioinformaticians lose matching sample IDs across assays?
Too many.
And it’s avoidable.
Let’s talk about why this happens—and how to stop it.
June 13, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
I am super excited to announce the first (brief) pre-print purely from my group:

Start right to end right: authentic open reading frame selection matters

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

This marks a return to NMD research for me. NMD detects early stop codons but we need to find the true stop!
June 11, 2025 at 10:40 PM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
The rest of Mendel's alleles characterized! So, out of 7 traits, 3 caused by TE insertions!!! (though apparently there are two different green alleles, one cause by a TE insertion, but another a promoter deletion allele)

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Genomic and genetic insights into Mendel’s pea genes - Nature
Characterization of the genetic architecture underlying the 7 pairs of contrasting traits studied by Mendel and the over 70 additional agronomic traits in pea (Pisum sativum) reveals their m...
www.nature.com
April 26, 2025 at 2:15 AM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
🚨 Preprint alert!!
Thrilled to share our new story where we report the discovery of a new sporophytic maternal-effect mutant in Arabidopsis. 🧵
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Maternal control of RNA decay safeguards embryo development
As in mammals, the plant embryo is surrounded by maternal tissues that provide protection from the external environment. In angiosperms, a double fertilization process results in the formation of a di...
www.biorxiv.org
June 2, 2025 at 10:55 AM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
🧪 A new method called MagIC-Cryo-EM allows scientists to use powerful #CryoEM techniques to examine proteins that have been difficult to study so far.
The (molecular) shape of you
New methods allow scientists to use a powerful technique known as cryo-EM to examine proteins that have been difficult to study so far.
buff.ly
May 29, 2025 at 10:02 AM
Reposted by Pierre Bourguet
The pitfalls of class prediction in omics 🧵
1/ You think you’ve built the perfect omics predictor.
The accuracy is high. The p-value is low.
But is it real—or just a story your data whispered back?
May 30, 2025 at 1:15 PM