Publication

Reorganisation of Hoxd regulatory landscapes during the evolution of a snake-like body plan

Related publications (29)

A CTCF-dependent mechanism underlies the Hox timer relation to a segmented body plan

During gastrulation, Hox genes are activated in a timesequence that follows the order of the genes along their clusters. This property, which is observed in all animals that develop following a progressive rostral-to-caudal morphogenesis, is associated wit ...

Current Biology Ltd2024

Ancestral genome reconstruction enhances transposable element annotation by identifying degenerate integrants

Didier Trono, Evaristo Jose Planet Letschert, Wayo Matsushima

Growing evidence indicates that transposable elements (TEs) play important roles in evolution by providing genomes with coding and non-coding sequences. Identification of TE-derived functional elements, however, has relied on TE annotations in individual s ...

2024

Variational quantum time evolution without the quantum geometric tensor

Giuseppe Carleo, Riccardo Rossi, Julien Sebastian Gacon, Stefan Woerner, Jannes Willy E. Nys

Realand imaginary -time quantum state evolutions are crucial in physics and chemistry for exploring quantum dynamics, preparing ground states, and computing thermodynamic observables. On near -term devices, variational quantum time evolution is a promising ...

Amer Physical Soc2024

Sequential and directional insulation by conserved CTCF sites underlies the Hox timer in stembryos

Denis Duboule, Célia Corinne Renée Bochaton, Lucille Delisle, Hocine Rekaik, Aurélie Hintermann, Alexandre Gauthier Aurèle Mayran

Temporal activation of Hox genes in mouse pseudo-embryos in vitro initiates at the anterior part of the cluster and is accompanied by asymmetric loading of cohesin. Posterior CTCF sites then successively act as transient insulators, regulating the timed tr ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2023

Wide-scale identification of novel/eliminated genes responsible for evolutionary transformations

Daria Korotkova

BackgroundIt is generally accepted that most evolutionary transformations at the phenotype level are associated either with rearrangements of genomic regulatory elements, which control the activity of gene networks, or with changes in the amino acid conten ...

2023

How are cells instructed to form somite boundaries by the zebrafish segmentation clock?

Olivier François Venzin

In vertebrate embryos, the elongating body axis is patterned via the sequential and rhyth-mic production of segments from a posterior unsegmented tissue called the presomitic mesoderm (PSM). This process is controlled by a population of cellular oscillator ...

EPFL2023

Statistical learning quantifies transposable element-mediated cis-regulation

Didier Trono, Julien Léonard Duc, Alexandre Coudray, Cyril David Son-Tuyên Pulver, Shaoline Sheppard, Evaristo Jose Planet Letschert, Raphaël Gérard Théodore Michel Marie de Deloÿe et Fourcade de Fondeville, Julien Paul André Pontis, Delphine Yvette L Grun

Background: Transposable elements (TEs) have colonized the genomes of most metazoans, and many TE-embedded sequences function as cis-regulatory elements (CREs) for genes involved in a wide range of biological processes from early embryo- genesis to innate ...

2023

Development of a Robotic Microsurgeon for Embryonic Research

Ece Özelçi

Understanding how biological matter takes its shape is instrumental to biology, bioengineering, medicine, and bioinspired engineering. Gaining information on the principles of morphogenesis could enable clinicians to correct developmental abnormalities, ev ...

EPFL2023

Context-dependent enhancer function revealed by targeted inter-TAD relocation

Denis Duboule, Guillaume Andrey, Christopher Chase Bolt, Lucille Delisle, Aurélie Hintermann

Here the authors show that a strong enhancer sequence can be controlled by the chromatin environment provided by a topologically associated domain (TAD) located nearby. An enhancer relocated by homologous recombination takes all the hallmarks of its new ne ...

Nature Portfolio2022

Mitochondrial Pseudogenes Suggest Repeated Inter-Species Hybridization among Direct Human Ancestors

Konstantin Popadin

The hypothesis that the evolution of humans involves hybridization between diverged species has been actively debated in recent years. We present the following novel evidence in support of this hypothesis: the analysis of nuclear pseudogenes of mtDNA ("NUM ...

MDPI2022

Mesomelic dysplasias associated with the HOXD locus are caused by regulatory reallocations

Denis Duboule, Christopher Chase Bolt, Lucille Delisle

Mesomelic dysplasia, a severe shortening and bending of the limb, has been linked to rearrangements in the HoxD cluster in humans and mice. Here the authors engineer a 1 Mb inversion including the HoxD gene cluster and use this model to provide a mechanist ...

Nature Portfolio2021

Sequential in cis mutagenesis in vivo reveals various functions for CTCF sites at the mouse HoxD cluster

Denis Duboule, Leonardo Beccari, Lucille Delisle, Jozsef Zakany

In this study, Amandio et al. sought to understand the functions of the highly conserved CTCF sites distributed over the Hox gene clusters. The authors produced an allelic series of cumulative in cis mutations in these sites, up to the abrogation of CTCF b ...

COLD SPRING HARBOR LAB PRESS, PUBLICATIONS DEPT2021

Induction of a chromatin boundary in vivo upon insertion of a tad border

Denis Duboule, Marie-Laure Gadolini, Christopher Chase Bolt, Lucille Delisle, Edgardo Rodriguez Carballo

Author summary During development, enhancer sequences tightly regulate the spatio-temporal expression of target genes often located hundreds of kilobases away. This complex process is made possible by the folding of chromatin into domains, which are separa ...

2021

The box C/D snoRNP assembly factor Bcd1 interacts with the histone chaperone Rtt106 and controls its transcription dependent activity

Benjamin Marcel Daniel Rothé

Biogenesis of eukaryotic box C/D small nucleolar ribonucleoproteins initiates co-transcriptionally and requires the action of the assembly machinery including the Hsp90/R2TP complex, the Rsa1p:Hit1p heterodimer and the Bcd1 protein. We present genetic inte ...

Nature Research2021

HOX13-dependent chromatin accessibility underlies the transition towards the digit development program

Alexandre Gauthier Aurèle Mayran

Hox genes encode transcription factors (TFs) that establish morphological diversity in the developing embryo. The similar DNA-binding motifs of the various HOX TFs contrast with the wide-range of HOX-dependent genetic programs. The influence of the chromat ...

Nature Research2020

Fryns type mesomelic dysplasia of the upper limbs caused by inverted duplications of the HOXD gene cluster

Denis Duboule

The HoxD cluster is critical for vertebrate limb development. Enhancers located in both the telomeric and centromeric gene deserts flanking the cluster regulate the transcription of HoxD genes. In rare patients, duplications, balanced translocations or inv ...

NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP2020

Chromatin topology and the timing of enhancer function at the HoxD locus

Denis Duboule, Leonardo Beccari, Lucille Delisle, Edgardo Rodriguez Carballo

The HoxD gene cluster is critical for proper limb formation in tetrapods. In the emerging limb buds, different subgroups of Hoxd genes respond first to a proximal regulatory signal, then to a distal signal that organizes digits. These two regulations are e ...

National Academy of Sciences2020

Amphibious and Sprawling Locomotion: From Biology to Robotics and Back

Auke Ijspeert

A milestone in vertebrate evolution, the transition from water to land, owes its success to the development of a sprawling body plan that enabled an amphibious lifestyle. The body, originally adapted for swimming, evolved to benefit from limbs that enhance ...

2020

The evolution of the type VI secretion system as a disintegration weapon

Julius Hans Bernd Winter

The type VI secretion system (T6SS) is a nanomachine used by many bacteria to drive a toxin-laden needle into other bacterial cells. Although the potential to influence bacterial competition is clear, the fitness impacts of wielding a T6SS are not well und ...

PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE2020

Generation of chiral asymmetry via helical magnetic fields

Ruth Durrer, Jennifer Waltraud Schober

It is well known that helical magnetic fields undergo a so-called inverse cascade by which their correlation length grows due to the conservation of magnetic helicity in classical ideal magnetohydro-dynamics (MHD). At high energies above approximately 10 M ...

American Physical Society2020