Cécile Courret
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cecilecourret.bsky.social
Cécile Courret
@cecilecourret.bsky.social
340 followers 330 following 15 posts
Group leader at I2BC | EVOGEN team | Evolutionary geneticist interested in intragenomic conflicts and genome evolution.
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cecilecourret.bsky.social
I'm thrilled to announce that I’m opening my own research team in the Department of Genome Biology at I2BC @i2bcparissaclay.bsky.social ! #ATIP-Avenir
Very excited to start this new adventure! www.i2bc.paris-saclay.fr/equipe-intra...
Equipe Courret – Institute for Integrative Biology of the Cell
www.i2bc.paris-saclay.fr
October 24, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by Cécile Courret
genetics-gsa.bsky.social
📢 Call for Papers! #GENETICS and #G3journal invite submissions on selfish genetic elements—from meiotic drive to Wolbachia, B-chromosomes, and other inheritance systems. Empirical & theoretical work welcome!

🗓️ Deadline: October 1
🔗Learn more & submit your research: buff.ly/k8DEw2N
July 16, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Reposted by Cécile Courret
ching-hochang.bsky.social
I’m thrilled to announce the launch of the Evolution of Chromosomes and Genomes (ECG) Lab at the Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Our lab website is now live—come check it out! sites.google.com/view/ecg-lab...
ECG LAB
"The only constant in life is change." — Heraclitus Genetic conflicts — the good, the bad, and the ugly — shape our lives over time We aim to understand why even the most essential genes and chrom...
sites.google.com
July 11, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Reposted by Cécile Courret
cp-trendsgenetics.bsky.social
"Selfish B chromosome evades genome elimination"
by Cécile Courret (@cecilecourret.bsky.social)

This Spotlight highlights recent work by Laura Ross (@laurarossevo.bsky.social) & colleagues in GBE (@genomebiolevol.bsky.social).

FREE till Aug 5th with this link:
authors.elsevier.com/a/1lH50cQbJF...
Figure 1. (A) During male meiosis, mealybugs undergo paternal genome elimination (PGE), where paternally inherited chromosomes become heterochromatinized and are excluded into degenerating nuclei, while maternally inherited chromosomes are retained in functional sperm. (B) During female meiosis, the B chromosome follows standard Mendelian inheritance. In males, when maternally inherited, it behaves like other maternal chromosomes and is transmitted through functional sperm. Strikingly, when paternally inherited, the B chromosome escapes elimination by decondensing during meiosis, adopting a euchromatic state similar to that of maternal chromosomes, and co-segregates with them into the functional sperm nucleus.
June 16, 2025 at 2:34 PM
Reposted by Cécile Courret
cp-trendsgenetics.bsky.social
A selfish gene in Drosophila has met its match: Trailblazer.

“An innovation in host responses to escalating genomic conflicts”
by @emilianomarti.bsky.social & Amanda Larracuente

highlights work from @peiwei-chen.bsky.social et al in PNAS.

FREE till May 24 at
authors.elsevier.com/a/1ktQOcQbJF...
April 4, 2025 at 1:45 PM
cecilecourret.bsky.social
Join us at ESEB 2025 in Barcelona!

I'm thrilled co-organize a symposium with Beatriz Navarro Domínguez (bioevolbea.bsky.social) on "Genetic conflict: Evolutionary and Genomic consequences"
eseb2025.com/list-of-symp...

Submit your abstracts by April 25, 2025 — don’t miss out! eseb2025.bsky.social
April 10, 2025 at 4:22 PM
cecilecourret.bsky.social
I am thrilled to share the news that I've been offered a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoc fellowship to work on genomic conflict in Drosophila #MSCA
February 13, 2025 at 10:37 PM
Reposted by Cécile Courret
plosbiology.org
Pericentromeric #heterochromatin clusters into chromocenters. @skrutlnize.bsky.social &co use quantitative mass spec to characterize the chromocenter proteome in multiple tissues, identifying a link between satellite DNA-binding proteins & #transposon repression🧪 @plosbiology.org plos.io/4akuNAi
Loss of D1 during embryogenesis triggers transposon expression in adult ovaries. Top: Ovaries from the indicated genotypes (D1 and aubergine mutants and heterozygotes, F1 and F2) were stained with Vasa (green) and DAPI (magenta). Bottom: RNA in situ hybridization against Copia (green) and total polyadenylated mRNA (blue) was performed in ovaries of the indicated genotypes that were also stained for DAPI (magenta). Yellow and black arrowheads indicate undifferentiated germ cells in the aubergine mutant germarium.
January 16, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Reposted by Cécile Courret
martijnschenkel.bsky.social
Happy to announce that ESEB 2025 will feature a symposium on the evolution in and of diverse genetic systems! See eseb2025.com/list-of-symp... for more info and the full list of accepted symposia (so many cool things happening!) [1/2]
List of Symposia – ESEB 2025. Congress of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology. Barcelona. Spain
eseb2025.com
January 13, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Reposted by Cécile Courret
martijnschenkel.bsky.social
Join us next week Thursday at 14:00 UTC for another seminar of the Internal Conflicts and Organismal Adaptation STN! John Werren and Bengt Bengtsson will discuss the early days of studying internal conflicts and selfish genetic elements. See internalconflictsstn.wordpress.com/seminars for more info.
Seminars
Seminar 9 John Werren (University of Rochester): Cooperating on Conflict: Selfish Genetic Elements, Heritable Microbes, and Genetic Conflicts. Bengt O. Bengtsson (Lund University): Decade…
internalconflictsstn.wordpress.com
January 9, 2025 at 9:45 AM
cecilecourret.bsky.social
Our new paper on the rapid evolution of centromeres in Drosophila is out! 🚀 Discover how transposable elements and satellite DNAs shape centromere dynamics and drive karyotype evolution over short timescales. @amlarracuente.bsky.social 🌟 Check it out here: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
Turnover of retroelements and satellite DNA drives centromere reorganization over short evolutionary timescales in Drosophila
Centromeres reside in rapidly evolving, repeat-rich genomic regions, despite their essential function in chromosome segregation. This study of centromere evolution over short evolutionary timescales i...
journals.plos.org
November 21, 2024 at 10:02 PM
Reposted by Cécile Courret
nucleosomepolice.bsky.social
Our paper on the strange ATP-dependent chromatin remodeler Smarcad1 paper is out and freely accessible. Differential regulation of its many activities by phosphorylation. Congrats to Briana and @nhoitsma.bsky.social 🧪https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021925824023950?via%3Dihub
Phosphorylation regulates the chromatin remodeler SMARCAD1 in nucleosome binding, ATP hydrolysis, and histone exchange
Maintaining the dynamic structure of chromatin is critical for regulating the cellular processes that require access to the DNA template, such as DNA …
www.sciencedirect.com
November 18, 2024 at 8:48 PM
Reposted by Cécile Courret
centromellone.bsky.social
Our paper on a centromere-enriched retroelement is out! link.springer.com/article/10.1... Congratulations to all the authors! Comments and reposts welcome and appreciated 🧬🔬
Transcription of a centromere-enriched retroelement and local retention of its RNA are significant features of the CENP-A chromatin landscape - Genome Biology
Background Centromeres depend on chromatin containing the conserved histone H3 variant CENP-A for function and inheritance, while the role of centromeric DNA repeats remains unclear. Retroelements are...
link.springer.com
November 18, 2024 at 5:50 PM