BGGCardiff

The Behavioural Genetics Group investigates how (epi)genetic factors influence brain function and vulnerability to psychiatric disorders

[BGGCardiff @BGGCardiff]

Our latest paper examines how various subtypes of #ichthyosis and their comorbidities change with age: https://t.co/i4Vzw4UKpk

[BGGCardiff @BGGCardiff]

New preprint! Mice lacking steroid sulfatase activity are grossly normal but are mildly hyperactive and have enlarged hearts: https://t.co/wd1fL0XuZQ

[BGGCardiff @BGGCardiff]

Is the risk of #postpartum #mood disorders due to a perturbed #brain #bone axis? A new hypothesis from our lab just published in @Transl_Psych: https://t.co/Vsv2ULg6fF

[Oded Rechavi @OdedRechavi]

A new mechanism for “RNA memory”! 😱
Thrilled to share another crazy paper from the lab (can’t believe we posted 2 in 2 days!), summarizing >10 years of research:
Work on transgenerational inheritance of small RNAs in the powerful model organism C. elegans changed how we think about what’s possible in inheritance and evolution, because it allows the most heretical thing: inheritance of parental responses to the environment! However, it’s still unclear whether RNAs are inherited across generations in other animals, largely because the RNA-dependent RNA polymerases that amplify heritable small RNAs and prevent their dilution in C. elegans are not conserved in mammals.

In this new work, an amazing collaboration with the Rink and Wurtzel labs, we show that planarians establish long-lasting and heritable small RNA–based gene regulatory states despite lacking canonical RNA-dependent RNA polymerases and nuclear RNAi machinery (that are required in C. elegans).

You might say “they are both worms…” BUT planarians are evolutionarily very distant from C. elegans (flatworms vs. roundworms, diverged more than 500 million years ago), making this particularly surprising. These are totally different animals.

We find that ingestion of double-stranded RNA induces sequence-specific silencing that persists for months and survives repeated cycles of whole-body regeneration. Even more strikingly, RNAi can be transferred between animals, echoing James V. McConnell’s controversial “RNA memory” experiments from the 1970s (his lab was targeted by the Unabomber terrorist Ted Kaczynski, who sent McConnell a bomb. This and other controversies ended this line of experiments…)

Mechanistically, we find that the response transitions from a transient systemic dsRNA-triggered phase to a stable, cell-autonomous post-transcriptional “memory phase” maintained by antisense small RNAs. Using a new luminescence reporter (transgenesis is currently impossible in planarians), we show that silencing spreads along the targeted gene and identify a weird type of planarian small RNAs with untemplated polyA tails.

RNAi inheritance without canonical RdRPs establishes planarians as a powerful system for studying RNA-based regulatory inheritance beyond C. elegans and raises the possibility that RNA-mediated inheritance may be more broadly conserved in animals, potentially even in mammals.

Here’s a video of a planarian that is treated by RNAi against β-catenin and develops multiple heads instead of just one. This is one of the phenotypes that is inherited. Another phenotype is “loss of eyes” (which we show is not only inherited across multiple regeneration cycles, but can also be transmitted between animals in transplantation experiments).

Amazing work led by first authors Prakash Cherian and Idit Aviram (co-supervised by Omri and me).
Please read the preprint, the link is in the next tweet, and share!

[Claire Bedbrook @clairebedbrook]

Excited to share this work with an amazing team:
@KarlDeisseroth @BrunetLab @Ravi__Nath @scott_linderman Libby Zhang
Paper in Science:
https://t.co/ujtNijrbae

[BGGCardiff @BGGCardiff]

Deadline extended to 20th March for this #PhD opportunity investigating a new cause of #arrhythmia

[BGGCardiff @BGGCardiff]

Last chance to apply for our #PhD position @cardiffuni
for UK/EU students to examine biological and psychological mechanisms linked to a new cause of #arrhythmia #atrialfibrillation https://t.co/XbuJmxkOMc

[Michael Andregg @michaelandregg]

We've uploaded a fruit fly. We took the @FlyWireNews connectome of the fruit fly brain, applied a simple neuron model (@Philip_Shiu Nature 2024) and used it to control a MuJoCo physics-simulated body, closing the loop from neural activation to action.

A few things I want to say about what this means and where we're going at @eonsys. 🧵

[BGGCardiff @BGGCardiff]

Last chance to apply for our #PhD position @cardiffuni
for UK/EU students to examine biological and psychological mechanisms linked to a new cause of #arrhythmia #atrialfibrillation https://t.co/XbuJmxkOMc

[BGGCardiff @BGGCardiff]

We currently have a #PhD position available @cardiffuni for UK/EU students to examine biological and psychological mechanisms linked to a new cause of #arrhythmia #atrialfibrillation https://t.co/XbuJmxlmBK

[BGGCardiff @BGGCardiff]

Last chance to apply for our #PhD position in beautiful Cardiff for UK/EU students interested in mental and physical health issues associated with genetic skin conditions #dermatology #psychology #health #mentalhealth:

https://t.co/AZV7635PKd

[Dr. Dominic Ng @DrDominicNg]

Cancer patients rarely get Alzheimer's.

And a 15-year study in @Cell just explained why. They found a protein that clears brain plaques in mice - by activating the brain's own IMMUNE CELLS 🧵

[BGGCardiff @BGGCardiff]

Loved presenting about the impact our work on Xp22.31 Copy Number Variants is having at UK Biobank Scientific Conference

[BGGCardiff @BGGCardiff]

Great to take part in the National Cardiovascular Research Network conference in Cardiff last week to discuss our work on a new candidate gene for #arrhythmia

[BGGCardiff @BGGCardiff]

We currently have a #PhD position available in beautiful Cardiff for UK/EU students interested in health issues associated with genetic skin conditions #dermatology #psychology #health #mentalhealth: https://t.co/AZV7635PKd

[Robert Y. Chen @therealRYC]

🚨 The older the sperm, the more likely it is to cause autism

Sequencing sperm using nearly error-free sequencing → measure % sperm carrying disease-causing mutations:

2% at age 30 → 4.5% at 70

Most were autism genes

New paper in @Nature today 🧵

[BGGCardiff @BGGCardiff]

Delighted to have been awarded a Research Award by @FIRST_Skin to fund our continuing work on understanding the biology of X-linked #ichthyosis https://t.co/MdVtWhD7XF

[Misha Teplitskiy | Science of Science @MishaTeplitskiy]

Turns out we should've been just asking people this whole time

[Robin Hofmeister @Rbn_Hfmstr]

🚨 Our parent-of-origin study is out in @Nature ! 🧬
Maternal and paternal alleles can have distinct — even opposite — effects on human traits, revealing a hidden layer of genetic architecture that standard GWAS miss.
🔗https://t.co/OWW6vGxGYI

Highlights below!

[BGGCardiff @BGGCardiff]

Further evidence for arrhythmias in Xp22.31 deletion-carrying boys consistent with our previous work: https://t.co/lMas74r6wG

[BGGCardiff @BGGCardiff]

Our new article just published in @HHE_Digital discussing our work informing new guidelines of care for #XLI https://t.co/b9cXnVOjFd