Creating a GPCR family activated by an inert ligand

๐Ÿงช Evolved muscarinic GPCRs, responsive only to CNO
โš™๏ธ Achieved cell signaling without native ligands
๐Ÿ“Š Used mutant receptors to study signaling pathways for msd

#GPCR #MolecularEvolution #DREADD #Pharmacology #CellEngineering

https://dev.https://tnyp.me/CcS0q4hQ/m

Directed molecular evolution of muscarinic receptors

๐Ÿ“‰ Evolved GPCRs activated by CNO, not acetylcholine
๐Ÿงช CNO activates M3 with 20-30 nM potency
๐Ÿ”ฌ hM4D receptor induces neuronal silencing for mtd
#GCPR #CNO #DREADD #hM3D #hM4D #molecularEvolution

https://dev.https://tnyp.me/CcS0q4hQ/m

Here this sum over organs/tissues shows a strong excess of positive selection on regulatory sequences in human nervous system evolution ๐Ÿ˜Ž. And to a lesser extent in male reproductive system. #MolecularEvolution #EvoDevo
Congratulations to @nextstrain for this great paper! Studying the evolution of moulting beyond insects has been challenging, and we are starting to see how moulting is both deeply conserved and evolving differently in pancrustacean lineages. #EvoDevo #ArthropodEvolution #MolecularEvolution
https://bsky.app/profile/nextstrain.bsky.social/post/3mfc344teo22w
Kenny Kim (@nextstrain.bsky.social)

New Preprint!! ๐Ÿฆ๐Ÿชฐ๐Ÿฆ€ In this study we compared moulting gene expression across insects and crustaceans. #insects #crustaceans Thread โฌ‡๏ธ (1/6) https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.15.699689v2

Bluesky Social
The next step in a great scientific adventure led by Marina Brasรณ Vives on amphioxus evolution: population genomics of a species with 3% heterozygosity! Read the thread and the preprint ๐Ÿ˜ #amphioxus #EvoDevo #PopulationGenomics #MolecularEvolution
https://bsky.app/profile/mbrasovives.bsky.social/post/3mctuhgks7k2q
Marina Brasรณ-Vives (@mbrasovives.bsky.social)

1/7 ๐Ÿงฌ New preprint! What is it like to have one of the highest genomic diversities among metazoans? ๐Ÿ”— https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.13.699254v1.full.pdf+html

Bluesky Social

I'm excited to present this new model to detect positive selection on regulatory sequences, which has been 3 years in the making!
Thanks to Alexandre Laverrรฉ and @Phylogenetrips for their amazing work on this project. ๐Ÿ˜ƒ
https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.11.26.690685

Thread! #bioinformatics #molecularEvolution

๐Ÿงฉ What if the diverse functions of a single protein all trace back to one structural superfamily?

๐Ÿ”— Evolutionary and structural bioinformatics identifies GPR89 as a conserved member of the LIMR protein superfamily. Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csbj.2025.11.003

๐Ÿ“š CSBJ: https://www.csbj.org/

#StructuralBiology #ComputationalBiology #MolecularEvolution #ProteinScience #Genomics #Proteomics #AlphaFold #MembraneProteins #Genetics #Bioinformatics

Distribution of Two Chloroplast Haplotypes of the Invasive Weed Himalayan Balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) in Ukraine and other European Countries - Cytology and Genetics

Abstract One of the most well-documented cases of successful plant invasion in Europe is the rapid spread of Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera Royle). Introduced from the Himalayas to Europe in the first half of the 19th century as an ornamental and nectar-producing plant, this species initially naturalized in the United Kingdom, from where it subsequently dispersed across the European continent. Despite the active invasion of I. glandulifera in Eastern Europe, the genetic diversity of its populations in this region has remained largely unexplored. In this study, we evaluated the variability of two chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) regions, trnS-G and rpl32-trnL(UAG), in I. glandulifera samples from Ukraine and compared the results with cpDNA variants from continental Europe, the United Kingdom, as well as from India and Pakistan. Our results reveal the widespread distribution of two distinct I. glandulifera haplotypes, T1-R1 and T2-R2, across continental Europe. These haplotypes differ in both cpDNA regions analyzed, and their divergence is inferred to have occurred within the speciesโ€™ native range. Chloroplast DNA variation was found to be significantly higher in the native range than in the invasive range. The broad distribution of the two chloroplast haplotypes across Europe supports the hypothesis of multiple introductions of I. glandulifera into the continent. The uneven distribution of haplotypes T1-R1 and T2-R2 within Ukraine may indicate a founder effect.

SpringerLink
Update of our preprint on Inter-individual gene expression variability in fishes! We improved statistical analyses of continuous variables, and especially added machine learning on promoters which confirms cis-regulation of organ-specific expression variability, under stronger sequence constraint in the organs ๐Ÿง  whose genes have lower expression variability.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.11.623020v3
#EvoDevo #MolecularEvolution #GeneExpression #RNAseq