The Wilkinson Lab is open for science! @MSKCancerCenter
🧬We'll be finding funky new RNA biology, mainly by looking at reverse transcriptases (i.e. the Best Enzymes In The World)🧬
annnnd: I'm hiring - come join! Especially postdocs and PhD students - please get in touch (NYC is great)
wilkinsonlab.bio
covercovercovercovercovercovercovercovercovercovercover this is terrifically exciting
(Also please dw, the central dogma is still very much intact, this is just a bit of a funky spin on it)
The central dogma of molecular biology states that genetic information flows from DNA and RNA to protein, with reverse transcription converting RNA to DNA.
In the pursuit of understanding how bacteria defend themselves from viral infection, two groups have found alternative pathways to making genes from RNA that did not previously encode proteins. Learn more this week in Science: bit.ly/3ZO7tI1
Max Wilkinson retweeted
Such a crazy discovery. I think this captures the reaction of the audience while watching @maxewilkinson present this at the Symposium on the Immune System of Bacteria.
My favourite discovery ever has just come online. Can I please tell you about some seriously wacky molecular biology? The story starts with a reverse transcriptase that SOMEHOW defends bacteria from viruses.
(👇 I recommend sound ON for the video 🎹)
1/
(P.S. eternal thanks as ever to @bradyajohnston for his #MolecularNodes plugin to #Blender3D. It makes molecular animation so much fun)
Lots more in the paper (#cryoEM etc!)
doi.org/10.1126/science.adq3…
Big thanks to coauthors @_David_Li @algao8 Rhiannon Macrae and @zhangf
Please also check out @shsternberg @stephentang23 related work - we come up with similar models, but it'll be exciting to resolve the differences!
Nils's incredible work is finally out, amazing work on a multi-talented protein by a multi-talented postdoc! It was a joy to use Dari @kimanius 's new Blush algorithm in #RELION to solve the cryoEM structure of this 40 kDa RNA complex
👋🏻 I'm absolutely glee-ridden to finally see our study on the RNA- and DNA-binding anti-CRISPR repressor Aca2 published in @Nature. 🥳 This unassuming little helix–turn–helix protein packs quite the punch! 🧶👇🏻
rdcu.be/dNl45
Max Wilkinson retweeted
In our newest preprint,
• we explore the effects of synonymous genome recoding, and
• construct & troubleshoot a synthetic 57-codon E. coli genome using multi-omics, editing, and laboratory evolution.
1/n
Max Wilkinson retweeted
The fly has a full #connectome, basically a directed + weighted graph. But what are its connection ‘signs’, excitatory/inhibitory?
We move towards this answer, predicting transmitters from EM! w/@BobQubit, vid @amyneurons, 1/n
Published @CellCellPress: cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092…
very gratifying to see the importance of this part of U4 snRNA, but also kinda sad to learn that exome sequencing has historically excluded such essential small RNAs by default
But what is this RNA? RNU4-2 encodes the U4 snRNA component of the major spliceosome. The 18 bp region maps to two critical structures thought to control the positioning of the U6 ACAGAGA sequence (image credit to @Seb_Fica - SNV positions in red, insertions as arrows) 7/9
Max Wilkinson retweeted
Would you believe me if I told you that a single variant in a non-coding RNA explains ~0.5% of all undiagnosed individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) in @GenomicsEngland ???
I didn’t initially either, but here is the story of RNU4-2 🧵1/9
Thrilled to share our latest discovery on a spliceosomal snRNA gene causing neurodevelopmental disorders: medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/… Thank you to everyone who contributed; it’s been a phenomenal effort to collaborate with clinicians and researchers for what would help many families!
go R2!! 🐦⬛🐦⬛
this is a very lovely study 😍
Bird bird bird, bird is the word!
Is the secret to safe gene addition a retroelement in birds?
We repurposed the avian R2 element to insert transgenes into human cells (and more!) using RNA-only delivery 🪶
a thread 🧵
nature.com/articles/s41587-0…
