RT @bentbraverman: If you’re a fan of DIY lab equipment, you’ll love the phenotype-o-mat, a customizable DIY 96-well plate imager from @Arc….

This work is part of our effort to improve gene annotation: “Mapping the functional landscape of protein families across biology”. [8/8].

Thanks to everyone involved in this work: @BiggeBrae @thecrispress @ReiterTaylor @PracheeAC @Mezarque @AustinHPatton @i__kolb @fuscans @RobertRoth57 [7/8]

While we've paused this research avenue for now, we’re still convinced of the potential of trait mapping and evolutionary analysis to unlock protein functions. [6/8]

Despite our efforts, no clear correlation emerged between DFAs and the examined traits. The lack of extensive trait data has limited, narrowed our study's scope and impacted our statistical insights. [5/8]

Next: we wanted to generate hypotheses about the function of DFAs in fungi. We employed evolutionary modeling to probe any correlations between DFAs and fungal traits (growth forms, nutrition modes, spore morphology and release, and response to auxin signals). [4/8]

Using #ProteinCartography, we scanned for other species with structurally similar divergent actins. We discovered that they are prevalent in fungi and refer to them as divergent fungal actins (DFAs). [3/8]

We uncovered a cluster of secondary actin variants in fungi 🍄 that structurally diverge from the well-known actin (circled in the figure below). These variants sparked our curiosity: where else do they occur and what are they doing? [2/8]

At @ArcadiaScience we also share our negative results. Dive into our latest work where we employed trait mapping and evolutionary analysis in search of the function of a structurally divergent actin isoform in fungi. Discover more in our thread 🧵 [1/8].

RT @emilycpierce: In our new pub, we investigate disease-associated repeat expansions (dREs). Expansion of DNA repeats can cause neurodegen….

RT @wright: Are you a creative scientist or a creator who loves science? I am hiring a Creative Director for @ArcadiaScience in Berkeley, C….

RT @ArcadiaScience: New open search! We are looking for project scientists to help us pilot high-risk, high-reward ideas:..

RT @TaraEssockBurns: Are you a motivated scientist who is excited about the statistical analysis of microscopy data and generating computat….

RT @seemaychou: After 2 years of building @ArcadiaScience, moving from the Why to the What in our latest blog post👇

Thank you to all the amazing people who contributed to this project: @AdairLBorges, @racheljdutton, @lizilla93, @thecrispress, @Mezarque. [7/7]

This work provides a general framework for screening evolutionary innovation through gene fusion 🙌! While we decided to put this effort on ice, we believe that there are many exciting ways to build from this project and keep exploring the marvels of venoms. [6/7]

Accessory sequences are highly toxin-specific and not conserved between distant species. Further sequence-based annotation revealed some as toxin sequences, but the function of others remain uncertain [5/7]

To screen for fused candidates, we looked for proteins that stood out as length-outliers among their group of homolog toxins. We identified 1,225 outlier toxins, and identified and extracted their accessory sequences. [4/7]

Relying on available transcriptome shotgun assemblies, we generated a custom data set of 33,207 protein sequences from the venom of 124 species and the saliva of 21 tick species. Pick your favorite venomous species, it might be in there 🐍🕷️🐝🐙 [3/7]