Romy Petroll
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petrollromy.bsky.social
Romy Petroll
@petrollromy.bsky.social
PhD student @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social | Interested in algae, plants, evolution and genomics.
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I am very excited to see my first PhD paper out as a preprint. "The expanded Bostrychia moritziana genome unveils evolution in the most diverse and complex order of red algae". Huge thanks to @borglab.bsky.social for the great supervision and guidance through this exciting project!🎉
🚨Preprint Alert🚨 I'm really happy to finally share our exploits in red algae and introduce the wider community to Bostrychia, the new model system we have been developing to tackle the molecular biology of red algae. Isn't she a beauty? Thread below 🧵 1/8 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Romy Petroll
🏆𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞 (𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫)

PETROLL et al. Enhanced sensitivity of tapscan v4 enables comprehensive analysis of streptophyte transcription factor evolution
doi.org/10.1111/tpj....

Congrats @petrollromy.bsky.social !
Enhanced sensitivity of TAPscan v4 enables comprehensive analysis of streptophyte transcription factor evolution
TAPscan v4 allows genome-wide annotation of 138 TF families, with 18 (sub-)families added since v3. With this release, we make a new web interface available, but also the underlying database and code...
doi.org
November 13, 2025 at 8:21 PM
Reposted by Romy Petroll
Excited to introduce Auxenochlorella as a new algal reference organism for fundamental plant science and bioengineering. A paper in two parts: a genetic toolkit for site-specific genomic manipulation, paired with the most unusual genome I’ve ever worked on

academic.oup.com/plcell/artic...
Targeted genetic manipulation and yeast-like evolutionary genomics in the green alga Auxenochlorella
Auxenochlorella, green algae shaped by evolutionary forces acting on vegetative diploids, are amenable to discovery research and bioengineering via efficie
academic.oup.com
October 29, 2025 at 6:59 AM
Reposted by Romy Petroll
So happy to see my first first-author paper published! 🎈
A short thread on how Ectocarpus and its TE secrets have kept me busy lately:

rdcu.be/eITQH
Characterization of the transposable element landscape shaping the Ectocarpus genome | Genome Biology
rdcu.be
October 1, 2025 at 8:12 AM
Reposted by Romy Petroll
Excited to share our new preprint on giant virus infection in brown algae: Latent endogenous viral elements drive active infection and inheritance in a multicellular host
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Latent endogenous viral elements drive active infection and inheritance in a multicellular host
Endogenous viral elements (EVEs) inserted in host genomes are often regarded as inert relics of past infections. Whether they can retain infective potential and contribute to active viral cycles has r...
doi.org
September 24, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Reposted by Romy Petroll
Super glad to contribute to this study on chromatin evolution in brown algae! Special thanks to Jeromine Vigneau, @borglab.bsky.social and Susana Coelho for making this happen.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Rewiring of chromatin regulation underlies the evolution of brown algal multicellularity
Chromatin structure plays a central role in regulating transcription, genome stability, and epigenetic inheritance in eukaryotes. Much of our understanding of chromatin architecture and histone post-t...
www.biorxiv.org
September 19, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Romy Petroll
Genomes of brown algae with different sex determination systems show that U/V sex chromosomes evolved 450–224 million years ago and show remarkable conservation of genes within the sex-determining region, despite independent expansions of the sex locus in each lineage

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Origin and evolutionary trajectories of brown algal sex chromosomes - Nature Ecology & Evolution
Genomes of nine brown algal species with different sex determination systems show that U/V sex chromosomes evolved 450–224 Ma and show remarkable conservation of genes within the sex-determining regio...
www.nature.com
August 25, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Reposted by Romy Petroll
Transposable elements in brown algae? 🌊
Yes, they’re full of surprises ✨
Come meet Ectocarpus at #ESEB2025!

📍Room 113 - S28.03
🗓️ Thursday, 2:30pm
August 19, 2025 at 11:22 AM
So excited to be at #ESEB2025 presenting poster 221 today!☀️

Check out our chromosome-level genome of Bostrychia, a red alga from the complex Ceramiales order, revealing massive genome expansion by giant Plavaka DNA transposons, the evolution of expanded gene families and UV sex chromosomes!
August 19, 2025 at 8:31 AM
Reposted by Romy Petroll
A wonderful summary of our recent work in @currentbiology.bsky.social . It’s an honour for it to have been written by such respected researchers in the field. Thank you @multicellgenome.bsky.social & team! 🤩
June 25, 2025 at 7:39 AM
Reposted by Romy Petroll
Delighted to see our work now published in @currentbiology.bsky.social. A great place for Bostrychia to stake its claim as an emerging red algal model system. Check it out here: www.cell.com/current-biol...
May 10, 2025 at 12:13 PM
Reposted by Romy Petroll
New study with @petrollromy.bsky.social @borglab.bsky.social traces the evolution of epigenetic silencing in plants. Deep conservation of PRC2-mediated H3K27me3 marks across green algae suggest ancient, conserved networks of gene repression.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molb...

#evobio #molevol #plants
The Expansion and Diversification of Epigenetic Regulatory Networks Underpins Major Transitions in the Evolution of Land Plants
Abstract. Epigenetic silencing is essential for regulating gene expression and cellular diversity in eukaryotes. While DNA and H3K9 methylation silence tra
doi.org
April 17, 2025 at 5:32 PM
I am very excited to see my first PhD paper out as a preprint. "The expanded Bostrychia moritziana genome unveils evolution in the most diverse and complex order of red algae". Huge thanks to @borglab.bsky.social for the great supervision and guidance through this exciting project!🎉
🚨Preprint Alert🚨 I'm really happy to finally share our exploits in red algae and introduce the wider community to Bostrychia, the new model system we have been developing to tackle the molecular biology of red algae. Isn't she a beauty? Thread below 🧵 1/8 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
February 12, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Reposted by Romy Petroll
In our latest @biorxiv-genomic.bsky.social preprint, we describe our approach to use PacBio HiFi reads to detect somatic TE transposition -- good enough to detect rare events that are present in only single cells. Led by Andrea Movilli.
#plantscience
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
February 10, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Reposted by Romy Petroll
TAPscan v4, final verson available:
dx.doi.org/10.1111/tpj....
Annotate TF families yourself or access web-UI online. Thanks to @petrollromy.bsky.social @shiltemann.bsky.social @jandevries.bsky.social @watertoland.bsky.social
TAPscan v4: Annotation of 138 TF/TR families across 678 species, focus on plants. Of 18 new (sub)fmilies, nine were gained in the most recent common ancestor of the Streptophyta (comprising streptophyte algae and land plants), or within streptophyte algae. 1/2
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
January 14, 2025 at 8:11 PM
Reposted by Romy Petroll
New preprint! How does meiosis work in non-model organisms? Together with Susana Coelho at the MPI for Biology Tübingen @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social , we took a look at the proteins of the meiotic axis in the brown alga Ectocarpus www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Exploring Meiosis in Brown Algae: Meiotic Axis Proteins in the model brown alga Ectocarpus
Most extant eukaryotic systems share core meiosis-specific genes, suggesting meiosis evolved only once in the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA). These genes have been characterized as master regu...
www.biorxiv.org
December 22, 2024 at 4:38 PM
Reposted by Romy Petroll
More than one-third of all family gains were identified during the evolution of streptophyte algae, before the emergence of land plants, and are thus likely to have been significant for plant terrestrialization. 2/2
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
December 17, 2024 at 8:07 PM
Reposted by Romy Petroll
Proud to share TAPscan v4, automated annotation of 138 TF families; code, webtool and database available online.
@watertoland.bsky.social @nfdi4plants.bsky.social @jandevries.bsky.social @shiltemann.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1111/tpj....
December 13, 2024 at 6:25 AM