iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

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...

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Nothing like a delicacy from Brazil with GMO corn and soy bean 😅

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

I was glad to host Kirsten Bomblies for our annual Barbara McClintock talk at the @mpipz.bsky.social to celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science!

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

So proud to share that @meng-zhang.bsky.social has successfully defended her PhD with summa cum laude 🎉🎓 A fantastic achievement that reflects years of hard work, rigor, and creativity. Congratulations, Dr. Zhang! Very well deserved, and excited to see what comes next! 👏✨

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

A new extreme of meiotic evolution: ✔️ 𝗻𝗼 crossovers ✔️ 𝗻𝗼 gene conversion ✔️ 𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹 meiosis & fertility Sex mimics clonality without becoming asexual, in the holocentric multicellular eukaryote 𝘙𝘩𝘺𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢 𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘶𝘪𝘴. more about it: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

Another beauty from our recent study! 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 thousands of holocentromeres' synteny across 40 MY of evolution Turns out holocentromeres can be stable in identity but wildly dynamic in structure. 🧬 If you want to read more about it, here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #Centromeres #Pangenome

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

The beauty that DEEPSPACE can do! Thanks to @jotlovell.bsky.social If you want to read more about it, here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

📢 Three new #bioRxiv preprints from our team on holocentric chromosomes. Together, they connect centromere repeat evolution, karyotype dynamics, and meiotic recombination outcomes, revealing how holocentric genomes evolve and function. 🧬👇

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

🌿🚗 Between 29 Jul–12 Aug we covered more than 2,000 km across Northeast Brazil on an unforgettable plant collection trip. Huge thanks to my PhD student Ruiyi and collaborators Profs. André Vanzela & Leonardo P. Felix—great teamwork, inspiring science, and breathtaking biodiversity! 🌱 #plantscience

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

Celebrating with our traditional paper cake! 📄🍰🌹

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

I am super happy to see our dog rose's paper featuring the cover of the July 3rd issue of @nature.com read more here: tinyurl.com/dog-rose

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

7/7 Finally, we propose a surprising role of centromere bimodality in shaping the unique reproductive strategy of dogroses. This may represent a rare case of an obligate drive mechanism, functioning in a “drive or die” manner to maximize the transmission of univalents.

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

6/7 Using high resolution microscopy we reveal the contrasting dynamics of bivalent and univalent centromeres during male meiosis in dogroses, which produces haploid pollen through selective segregation of bivalent-forming chromosomes, while univalents lag and are eliminated.

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

5/7 Remarkably, we found a strong correlation of centromere type and size with the chromosome fates in meiosis. Thus, revealing a centromere warfare: bivalents use retrotransposon-rich centromeres; univalents deploy large satellite repeats to likely hijack egg cells.

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

4/7 Using pollen sequencing, we show that bivalent-forming chromosomes can be composed by different subgenomes in different dogroses, supporting their multiple origins. We also show that dogrose offspring resemble the paternal genotype confirming their asymmetric inheritance.

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

3/7 Haplotype-resolved genomes reveal that modern dogroses are composed by four distinct subgenomes, with one particular subgenome being present in two copies (bivalent-forming subgenome), while the remaining 3 chromosome sets are present in single copies (univalent subgenomes)

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Burning 20% of my last BBQ calories' intake 🤣

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

#8️⃣ Marques, A. and Drinnenberg, A. I. (2025). Same but different: Centromere regulations in holocentric insects and plants. Current Opinion in Cell Biology 93, 102484 doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

I am thrilled to share our new review on holocentric chromosomes. It was a lot of fun to write it together with Ines Drinnenberg! Same but different: Centromere regulations in holocentric insects and plants doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Traditional Snow group picture! In Cologne it only snow once a year so we have to be quick ☃️

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

Nice one just before the year turns again: academic.oup.com/aob/advance-...

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

Enjoying a very nice Brazilian Feijoada with the lab today!

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

This year, our group's Secret Santa 🎁🎄 activity began with a delightful guided tour exploring Cologne's history, complete with a festive touch of Christmas markets and a special dinner. I am thankful to all my group members for their patience with me 😅

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

Nice seminar from @cristobaluauy.bsky.social about wheat spike development and lots of awesome spatial transcriptomics in our @ceplas.bsky.social Friday!

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Thanksgiving 🦃 dinner 🍽️ finally there 🤩

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Keeping up with our lab Christmas 🎄 Eisstockschießen tradition!

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

If you see this, please repost with a favourite photo of the sky that you've taken recently.

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 09/02/2024

🔥𝑷𝒂𝒑𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒓𝒕🔥 Thrilled 🤩to announce that our paper on 𝗺𝗲𝗶𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗯𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗱𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 has now been officially published in @natureplants.bsky.social DFG ERC_Research @ceplas.bsky.social @maxplanck.bsky.social 𝑳𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒆𝒅 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 17/01/2024

Enjoying the snow at MPIPZ Cologne to update our group picture

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 24/12/2023

Targeting conserved regions of #kinetochore proteins KNL1 and NDC80 provides antibodies for labeling #centromeres across a spectrum of seed plants ! Great collaboration led my the Macas lab www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 12/12/2023

Delighted to have our @pacbio.bsky.social Revio machine installed at our institute MPI for Plant Breeding Research! Looking forward to exciting genomics!

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André Marques @amarques.bsky.social · 06/12/2023

Pictures from our recent Christmas activity in Cologne's Christmas Market #Eisstockschießen

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