André Marques

@amarques.bsky.social

A lover of chromosome biology 🧬🔬🔎 Studying (not only) meiosis, centromeres & genome evolution in plants!
Group leader at MPI for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, Germany
Lab website:
https://www.mpipz.mpg.de/5028512/marques

@centromellone.bsky.socialReposted by @amarques.bsky.social

🚨🚨Preprint alert!🚨🚨 We removed the main centromere 3 domain of Drosophila‼️ We designed an inducible dCas9-Fok1 system to cut 🧬 at unique sequences flanking the ~50-kb island where most of CENP-A sits. To our knowledge, this has never been attempted in a living animal!

@amarques.bsky.social

We are now establishing a transformation protocol for it, so we will attempt to restore recombination by bringing a functional copy of SHOC1, which is silenced in R. tenuis

@amarques.bsky.social

Good question! Well we haven’t been able to detect a single crossover across at least five different accessions across different localities of Brazil. We also see early signatures of genome divergence in R. tenuis consistent with predictions from Meselson effect. So I am quite sure there is no CO.

@mpipz.bsky.socialReposted by @amarques.bsky.social

📣We are #hiring Join the Department of Comparative Development and Genetics @mpipz.bsky.social to work on mechanisms underlying plant development & diversity in a Research Support role.🌿Apply now #plantsci
👉https://jobs.mpipz.mpg.de/jobposting/36d653f86928d4c47af6b4d32debc67692b34a7d0?ref=homepage

Jobdescription
@amarques.bsky.socialReposted by @amarques.bsky.social

Out today in Nature: sex without crossovers.

Rhynchospora tenuis makes pollen, fertilises and sets seed, yet 0 crossovers in 10,997 pollen nuclei. Chromosome drive and ~87% seed abortion rebuild the mother's genotype, so the offspring are clones.

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

@pnovik.bsky.socialReposted by @amarques.bsky.social

I am happy to present our work @liverworks.bsky.social @robinburns.bsky.social @alisondawnscott.bsky.social on centromeric repeat turnovers, of which we counted three in the Arabidopsis genus:

@sciencex.bsky.socialReposted by @amarques.bsky.social

Brazilian beak-sedge reproduces through pollen, fertilization and seeds, but its surviving offspring are genetic clones of their mothers. More than 10,000 pollen nuclei showed no DNA crossovers. doi.org/hcjqf3

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