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Reposted by Rog lab at the University of Utah

American Society for Cell Biology @ascbiology.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

🎉 Congratulations to Needhi Bhalla, UC Santa Cruz (www.bhallalab.com ), named a 2025 #ASCB Fellow! This honor celebrates her outstanding contributions to cell biology, leadership, & service. Fellows will be recognized at #CellBio2025 in Philadelphia this December. #CellBiology

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Reposted by Rog lab at the University of Utah

EMBL DB unit @embldbunit.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

Only a few days left to register to attend virtually the @embl.org symposium on the "Wild Frontier of Model Systems". Don't miss this opportunity if you are interested in exploring unconventional model organisms for a better understanding of biology, ecology and evolution

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Reposted by Rog lab at the University of Utah

University of Utah School of Biological Sciences @uofubiology.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

News! @theroglab.bsky.social Gordon et al. discovers synaptonemal complex wets & aligns chromosomes, a crucial step in sexual reproduction, where errors in chromosome# can be fatal to the embryo. @utah.edu Read in Science Advances www.science.org/doi/full/10....

science.org

The synaptonemal complex aligns meiotic chromosomes by wetting

During sexual reproduction, the synaptonemal complex aligns the maternal and paternal chromosomes by wetting.

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Reposted by Rog lab at the University of Utah

Abby Dernburg @adernburg.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

I hope that everyone in the private sector who depends on federal grants to train their researchers and staff, pay for their services and products, or benefits in any other way from federal funding will come out to #standupforscience!

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Reposted by Rog lab at the University of Utah

MAYosis @mayosis.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

Ofer Rog @theroglab.bsky.social from @utah.edu will talk about "Regulating sister interactions during meiosis" on May 21st Learn more about Dr. Rog's work : theroglab.org --> Register here: meiosis.cornell.edu/mayosis2025/...

theroglab.org

The Rog Lab

The Rog Lab, headed by Dr. Ofer Rog, is located at the Department of Biology in the University of Utah at Salt Lake City, and uses C. elegans and yeast to study meiosis, sexual reproduction and chrom...

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Much more inside. As usual, hit us up if you have any feedback!

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Finally, we used our kinetic information to derive the total number of DSBs. We found an average of 40 DSBs per nucleus in wild-type meiosis suggesting a ratio of 7:1 of DSBs to crossovers, and more DSBs in mutant scenarios.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Second, strand invasion kinetics were similar for repair events templated by the homolog versus the sister. This was surprising, since a leading hypothesis is that DSBs that don't find the homologs stall and are only repaired at the end of meiosis using the sister chromatid.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

We made 3 crucial findings. First, we found that most repair events finish the strand-invasion step in 1-2 hours. This is true for both endogenous (SPO-11-induced) and irradiation-induced DSBs.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

New preprint from the lab! We defined the kinetics of strand invasion during meiosis in C. elegans. Great work from Antonia, Henry and Divya. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 10/11/2024

Looking for a summer undergraduate research opportunity? Come work with us! Apply to SPUR at the University of Utah - it including a stipend and funds for travel and housing: our.utah.edu/research-sch... our.utah.edu/spur/underst... Reach out if you have any questions!

our.utah.edu

Summer Program for Undergraduate Research (SPUR) - Office of Undergraduate Research

SPUR is a nationally competitive opportunity that provides undergraduate students with an intensive 10-week summer research experience under the mentorship of a University of Utah…

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

We’d love to get feedback and suggestions. Kudos to Kewei, an amazing grad student who developed CheC-PLS over the last 5 years; to Chloe and Lexy (now with her own lab, new-car-smell and all, at UMinnesota); and to Lisa and a super-talented undergrad, Kaan.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

So Skp1 has been moonlighting for >100 million years. Which adds a new twist to the SC paradox: how does a highly conserved protein (Skp1) maintains intimate interaction with quickly diverging proteins in a way that does not leave a clear evolutionary mark in their sequence?

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

In both nematode, Skp1 is not only necessary for assembly of the SC onto chromosomes - without dimerization-competent Skp1, SC proteins are absent.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

Lisa turned to the distantly related nematode P. pacificus, and found that the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. Ppa-SKR-1 localize to the middle of the SC, and a conserved dimerization interface in Skp1 is specifically required for SC assembly in Pristi, as it is in elegans.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

Recently, Yumi Kim's lab made an intriguing discovery: Skp1, a conserved subunit of the SCF ubiquitin ligase complex (SKR-1 in C. elegans), moonlights as a structural component of the SC. Lisa decided to test whether this function is conserved. 10.1126/sciadv.adl4876

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

On the other hand, the protein sequence is incredibly divergent between and within clades, so much so that the genes had to be independently cloned in different model organisms. (More on that in Lisa’s previous paper.) elifesciences.org/articles/30823

elifesciences.org

Live cell-lineage tracing and machine learning reveal patterns of organ regeneration

A combination of live cell tracking, cell-lineage tracing and machine learning shows that injured sensory organs repair accurately regardless of the extent of damage.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

#3: Skp1 in the SC. SC proteins have intriguing evolutionary history: they build a highly conserved structure AND (almost) all subunits are co-dependent for assembly.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

That has crucial implications: ZHP-3 can sample the entire 6um chromosome in tens of minutes, whereas SYP-3 cannot. By extension, ZHP-3 is capable of efficiently transducing a crossover signal, whereas SYP-3 would be unlikely to.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

The second important finding came from comparing the diffusion of an SC component (SYP-3) vs a regulator of crossovers (ZHP-3). ZHP-3 diffuses 4-9 times faster than SYP-3 (depending on meiotic stage).

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

(Black-boxing some amazing tech here; check out the preprint for details.) This finding confirmed a crucial aspect of the coarsening hypothesis.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

However, a crucial piece of this model has not been tested: do molecules diffuse within the SC? Lexy directly tested that. By sparsely labeling SC components and crossover regulators, she was able to observe single molecules in live gonads.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

This idea, and beautiful data from worms and plants (from Raphael Mercier, Chris Morgan and others) suggested coarsening regulates genetic exchanges (crossovers).

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

And perhaps not less important - potential for many future experiments. Should be noted: nothing in the design confines CheC-PLS to budding yeast, so it should be adaptable to other model organisms.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

Our data revealed sliding of cohesin on DNA (presumably loop extrusion); positioning of nucleosomes; and, AFAIK, the first binding patterns of cohesins in the rDNA locus. Much more data inside.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

We also performed a CheC-PLS on isolated nuclei, using Rec8-GFP and nanobodies targeted to GFP and tethered to a methyltransferase. (This variation is related to recently published techniques like DiMeLo-seq and SAMOSA). cc @astraight.bsky.social

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

We developed CheC-PLS on meiotic chromosomes in budding yeast. We tagged the cohesin subunit Rec8 and recapitulated ChIP & HiC data.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

How do we do that? We mark DNA by tethering a methyltransferase to a protein. (This is similar to DamID.) Next, we sequence genomic DNA using Nanopore. This gives us 1) long reads (some >200kb) 2) directly detecting methylated bases, revealing where the protein ‘touched’ the chr.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

#1: CheC-PLS (pronounced ‘check, please’) is a new genomic technique. It relates to ChIP, but adds 4 crucial features: 1. contiguity (how distant events are regulated) 2. history (where a protein has been) 3. heterogeneity (single cell data) 4. context (mapping repeats).

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 01/07/2024

Three (3) new pre-prints from the lab! Very proud of this work that spans approaches and model organisms, and highlights the many approaches the lab undertakes. CheC-PLS: doi.org/10.1101/2024... Diffusion in the SC: doi.org/10.1101/2024... Skp1:

doi.org

Decoding chromosome organization using CheC-PLS: chromosome conformation by proximity labeling and long-read sequencing

bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 19/01/2024

So honored to be awarded the Early Career Medal by GSA. And to be in such esteemed company. Couldn't have done it without the truly amazing members of my lab, my mentors and my awesome colleagues at the University of Utah genestogenomes.org/preeminent-g...

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 12/12/2023

Much more analysis inside, but one particularly intriguing finding: many of the the suppressors were in completely conserved positions (a rarity in SC proteins). They perfectly suppressed the original mutation, but didn't exhibit any phenotypes on their own!

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 12/12/2023

The story starts with a saturated suppressor screen for a temperature-sensitive mutation that destabilizes the SC. Lisa identified dozens of suppressors, that all mapped to three short stretches in SC proteins.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 12/12/2023

First science post from the Rog lab: Proud to have out this paper at PNAS from Lisa and Jesus on the synaptonemal complex in C. elegans. It includes what is probably the most beautiful genetic data I was ever involved in analyzing - check it out! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

pnas.org

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

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Reposted by Rog lab at the University of Utah

Stephan Gruber @gruberlab.bsky.social · 04/11/2023

First preprint 📢 on bsky: New work on the Wadjet defence system by @roisnehamelinf.bsky.social & @drhonsworth.bsky.social revealing beautiful & exciting structures of JET on plasmid DNA. With loop extrusion, obstacles, DNA bending, kinking, cleavage 🦠🧫 🧪 t.co/RaO7IO3zDk With help from @DCI_Lausanne

Structures of JetABCD complex on kinked plasmid DNA.

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Rog lab at the University of Utah @theroglab.bsky.social · 26/10/2023

With the College of Science team at NDiSTEM SACNAS conference in Portland. Booth 642. Come over if you’d like to chat!

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