Location: Flowers building G47A

15:30: Annabelle Wurmser: “Capturing chromatin dynamics during neuromesodermal progenitor specification”

16:00: Daniela Dietrich (University of Bristol) – “Hydrotrotropism – how roots search for water"

17:00 Social Happy Hour (SEC, 7th floor).

Welcome to Bluesky!

Exciting!

Look forward to hearing feedback from our colleagues in the field!

Thanks also to our collaborator labs for all their help on this: @shamith.bsky.social, Huntly, Klenerman, Holcman @bertiegottgens.bsky.social @pradeepmadapura.bsky.social Mohorianu

Huge congrats to first authors Maike Steindel & Oliver Davis! This has also been quite the team effort from the whole lab: Liviu, Shuyue, @gokceagsu.bsky.social @deep-adhya.bsky.social Jorg Annabelle @stanleystrawbridge.bsky.social @scicambridge.bsky.social @imperiallifesci.bsky.social

Using single-molecule imaging, we find that MLL2 acts like a tether, restricting chromatin mobility genome-wide and at the Mll2-dependent gene Sox2. This suggests a model where MLL2 tethering increases enhancer-promoter mixing at key neuroectoderm genes to drive differentiation.

Micro-C reveals that MLL2’s effect on chromatin architecture is more substantial, stabilising enhancer-promoter loops associated with bivalent genes in primed pluripotent cells. Interestingly, MLL2’s catalytic activity is not required for loop formation or differentiation.

However, single-cell transcriptomics and quantitative immunofluorescence of the priming transition reveal that MLL2 has only a subtle change on transcription, increasing the expression of a few important neuroectodermal transcription factors such as SOX2.

We build on previous studies that show a requirement for MLL2 in neuroectoderm differentiation. Using conditional knockouts, we reveal that this requirement occurs during pluripotent cell priming, days before differentiation is impaired.

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