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Reposted by Maja Szymanska-Lejman

Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

📣We’re excited to announce that registration for the Plant Meiosis Meeting is now open‼️ The website and preliminary program are live, and abstract submission will open soon. Book accommodation early due to major trade fairs in Poznań! See you in Poznań! 🌱 pmm.amu.edu.pl

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Reposted by Maja Szymanska-Lejman

Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

📣Our paper is out! 🤩 We found that local modification of H3K9me3 using CRISPR/dCas9 at hotspots changes crossover activity, bringing us closer to targeted recombination in plants.🌱 Huge thanks to @szymanskalejman.bsky.social, Wojtek, Ania, and Karolina! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

Modifying meiotic recombination by targeting chromatin regulators to crossover hotspots in Arabidopsis

Targeting chromatin modifiers to DNA hotspots reveals causal link between histone marks, transcription, and meiotic recombination.

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Reposted by Maja Szymanska-Lejman

Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Breaking genetics news‼️🌱🌽 A natural DNA trick triples recombination in maize. What we first saw in Arabidopsis (@hendersi lab) a decade ago is now confirmed in crops—opening new doors for plant breeding. Published today in Nature Plants! More details 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.com

Enhancing local meiotic crossovers in Arabidopsis and maize through juxtaposition of heterozygous and homozygous regions - Nature Plants

This study discovered that locally confined DNA differences boost crossover rates in both Arabidopsis and maize, revealing a conserved mechanism that can accelerate plant breeding and trait introgress...

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Reposted by Maja Szymanska-Lejman

Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

‼️Can we tune crossover hotspot activity by targeting chromatin modifiers? Absolutely!💥 Our screen shows dCas9-JMJ14 represses crossovers at targeted sites, while VP64 boosts them! 🧬 Check our new preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #meiosis4ever #CRISPR #Arabidopsis

biorxiv.org

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Maja Szymanska-Lejman @szymanskalejman.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

It was an incredible meeting! Thank you Ula!! I came back with fantastic memories, new ideas and the Prize for the best talk;-)

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Reposted by Maja Szymanska-Lejman

Corentin Claeys Bouuaert @ccb-lab.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

🥳Just published @nature.com. Over 25 years after the discovery of SPO11 as the enzyme responsible for initiating meiotic recombination, we finally succeeded in reconstituting its DNA cleavage activity.🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.com

SPO11 dimers are sufficient to catalyse DNA double-strand breaks in vitro - Nature

A biochemical system recapitulates the hallmarks of meiotic double-strand break formation, with mouse SPO11 catalysing break formation in the absence of any partners and remaining covalently atta...

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Reposted by Maja Szymanska-Lejman

Ian Henderson @hendersi.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Centrophilic retrotransposon integration via CENH3 chromatin in Arabidopsis from Tetsuji Kakutani & colleagues - beautiful insights into control of transposon insertion into the centromeres www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.com

Centrophilic retrotransposon integration via CENH3 chromatin in Arabidopsis - Nature

An Arabidopsis long terminal repeat retrotransposon integrates de novo into regions occupied by centromere-specific histone variant, showing the impact of centromeric chromatin on transposable element...

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