Max Wilkinson
@maxewilkinson
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PhD @MRC_LMB, now post-doc at @MIT, dabbler in cryoEM. Keen on spliceosomes. Now also keen on reverse transcription. Kiwi.
Cambridge, MA
Joined October 2016
PS if someone in the Boston area spots a spare printed copy in their department tearoom could they please steal it for me 😊😊🙏🙏 (steal one for yourself first of course).
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covercovercovercovercovercovercovercovercovercovercover this is terrifically exciting. (Also please dw, the central dogma is still very much intact, this is just a bit of a funky spin on it).
The central dogma of molecular biology states that genetic information flows from DNA and RNA to protein, with reverse transcription converting RNA to DNA. In the pursuit of understanding how bacteria defend themselves from viral infection, two groups have found alternative
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RT @bradyfcress: Such a crazy discovery. I think this captures the reaction of the audience while watching @maxewilkinson present this at t….
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Lots more in the paper (#cryoEM etc!).Big thanks to coauthors @_David_Li @algao8 Rhiannon Macrae and @zhangf .Please also check out @shsternberg @stephentang23 related work - we come up with similar models, but it'll be exciting to resolve the differences!.
science.org
Reverse transcription has frequently been co-opted for cellular functions and in prokaryotes is associated with protection against viral infection, but the underlying mechanisms of defense are...
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(P.S. eternal thanks as ever to @bradyajohnston for his #MolecularNodes plugin to #Blender3D. It makes molecular animation so much fun).
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Fellow RNA geeks might see parallels to two eukaryotic systems. 1) Splicing – gene construction from non-contiguous RNA segments. 2) Telomerase – repetitive DNA synthesis from an RNA template. All use, or evolved from, reverse transcriptases. RTs rule!. 6/
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What does this gene do? It produces a repetitive protein that is super toxic 💀. In fact, the more repetitive it is, the more toxic it is 💀💀💀. It stops bacterial growth, and this probably stops the virus from replicating. The lone cell dies, but the pack survives. 5/.
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Why make repetitive DNA? It turns out the juxtaposed repeats reconstitute a perfect promoter and continuous open reading frame (a mildly mind-blowing thing to realise). In other words: the bacterium is physically MAKING A GENE in response to viral infection. 4/
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(Incidentally, we first named this activity DARCARTs – for Defence-Associated Rolling Circle Amplification by Reverse Transcription – because of the similarity to RCA. Sadly, the journals/reviewers/editors/PIs cut this name but NO ONE can stop me using it here :P). 3/
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The system consists of a reverse transcriptase and a beautifully pseudoknotted non-coding RNA. We found that during viral infection, the reverse transcriptase goes rampant and makes REPETITIVE DNA, templated by a middle bit of the non-coding RNA. 2/
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My favourite discovery ever has just come online. Can I please tell you about some seriously wacky molecular biology? The story starts with a reverse transcriptase that SOMEHOW defends bacteria from viruses. (👇 I recommend sound ON for the video 🎹).1/
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considering making a high-effort molecular movie for an upcoming paper (!) but am slightly worried Twitter / Xitter will implode before I get to post it 🥲.
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Nils's incredible work is finally out, amazing work on a multi-talented protein by a multi-talented postdoc! It was a joy to use Dari @kimanius 's new Blush algorithm in #RELION to solve the cryoEM structure of this 40 kDa RNA complex.
👋🏻 I'm absolutely glee-ridden to finally see our study on the RNA- and DNA-binding anti-CRISPR repressor Aca2 published in @Nature. 🥳 This unassuming little helix–turn–helix protein packs quite the punch! 🧶👇🏻.
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RT @AkosNyerges: In our newest preprint, .• we explore the effects of synonymous genome recoding, and .• construct & troubleshoot a synthet….
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RT @as_bates: The fly has a full #connectome, basically a directed + weighted graph. But what are its connection ‘signs’, excitatory/inhibi….
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(also having second thoughts about calling that region "quasi-pseudoknot", although it seemed like a good idea at the time).
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RT @nickywhiffin: Would you believe me if I told you that a single variant in a non-coding RNA explains ~0.5% of all undiagnosed individual….
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very gratifying to see the importance of this part of U4 snRNA, but also kinda sad to learn that exome sequencing has historically excluded such essential small RNAs by default.
But what is this RNA? RNU4-2 encodes the U4 snRNA component of the major spliceosome. The 18 bp region maps to two critical structures thought to control the positioning of the U6 ACAGAGA sequence (image credit to @Seb_Fica - SNV positions in red, insertions as arrows) 7/9
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go R2!! 🐦⬛🐦⬛.this is a very lovely study 😍.
Bird bird bird, bird is the word!. Is the secret to safe gene addition a retroelement in birds?. We repurposed the avian R2 element to insert transgenes into human cells (and more!) using RNA-only delivery 🪶. a thread 🧵.
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RT @leighton_payne: 🚨📄PREPRINT ALERT! "New antiviral defences are genetically embedded within prokaryotic immune systems" ⚔️🦠 #phage https:….
biorxiv.org
Bacteria and archaea typically have multiple defence systems that protect them against viral predation. Recently, many new defence systems have been discovered, yet the full scope of the prokaryotic...
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