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Cécile Courret

@cecilecourret

Group leader at I2BC | EVOGEN team | Evolutionary geneticist interested in intragenomic conflicts and genome evolution.

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21.11.2024
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Latest posts by Cécile Courret @cecilecourret

Grateful to have worked with such an incredible team on this project. Excited to finally share this story about Top2 evolution and hybrid incompatibility in Drosophila. More to come!

24.02.2026 21:20 👍 18 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 1
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🔬 Recruiting a Postdoc!!!!
I’m looking for a motivated postdoc to join my lab and work on characterizing the role of a heterochromatin protein involved in a sex-ratio meiotic drive system in Drosophila.
If you know someone who might be interested, please share widely!

19.02.2026 17:21 👍 14 🔁 13 💬 0 📌 0
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Pierre Capy était un généticien, un drosophiliste, un acteur majeur dans l'essor de la génétique des éléments transposables en France.
Très impliqué dans l'administration de la vie scientifique, il a aussi été directeur du laboratoire LEGS (actuel @EGCE), et un des fondateurs en 2016 de @IDEEV.

05.02.2026 15:52 👍 4 🔁 6 💬 2 📌 1
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Hybrid female sterility due to cohesin protection errors in mouse oocytes Misregulation of chromosome cohesion during female meiosis serves as a reproductive isolating barrier in mice.

Another announcement! 📣 Our work on hybrid incompatibility in cohesin protection in 🐭oocytes is published!! Congrats Warif El Yakoubi and Eddie Pan!!🎉 We found hybrids with cohesion errors in two distinct genus.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

07.02.2026 00:51 👍 48 🔁 24 💬 3 📌 0

Thank you Vincent! Can't wait start new projects 😁

24.10.2025 18:15 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Thanks Mia ! 😁

24.10.2025 18:13 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Thank you Peiwei 😁

24.10.2025 18:13 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Our research focuses on intragenomic conflicts and their impact on genome evolution using Drosophila.

A huge thanks to my amazing mentors, Catherine Montchamp-Moreau and @amlarracuente.bsky.social. I would not be here without their support over the years.

24.10.2025 15:40 👍 5 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Equipe Courret – Institute for Integrative Biology of the Cell

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...

24.10.2025 15:39 👍 37 🔁 8 💬 7 📌 3
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📢 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

16.07.2025 18:03 👍 1 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0
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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...

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...

11.07.2025 20:23 👍 14 🔁 8 💬 2 📌 1

Merci Vincent 😁 !

26.06.2025 18:53 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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.

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.

"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...

16.06.2025 14:34 👍 7 🔁 9 💬 0 📌 1
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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...

04.04.2025 13:44 👍 9 🔁 7 💬 0 📌 0

We’re excited to feature two outstanding invited speakers:
🎤 Antoine Molaro (antoinemolaro.bsky.social)
🎤 Laura Ross (laurarossevo.bsky.social)

10.04.2025 16:22 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

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

10.04.2025 16:22 👍 4 🔁 5 💬 2 📌 0

Thank you Peiwei !

18.02.2025 14:17 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

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

13.02.2025 22:37 👍 45 🔁 1 💬 2 📌 0
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.

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.

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

16.01.2025 13:13 👍 14 🔁 10 💬 1 📌 0
List of Symposia – ESEB 2025. Congress of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology. Barcelona. Spain

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]

13.01.2025 09:37 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 1
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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…

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.

09.01.2025 09:45 👍 2 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 1

Congratulations 🎉

09.01.2025 07:49 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Thank you Floria!

09.12.2024 16:01 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Thank you Peter!

26.11.2024 22:56 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Thank you!

26.11.2024 22:55 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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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...

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/...

21.11.2024 22:02 👍 56 🔁 28 💬 3 📌 4
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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 …

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

18.11.2024 20:48 👍 138 🔁 34 💬 4 📌 1
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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...

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 🧬🔬

18.11.2024 17:50 👍 80 🔁 45 💬 4 📌 1