Ryuji Yanase

I have officially started my new position as a Senior Research Scientist at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) 🇯🇵. My new research group will focus on the cell/molecular biology of parasitic Excavata & amoebae (incl. Trypanosoma, Naegleria, Acanthamoeba, & more) (1/3)

The kinetochore is essential for cell division across species, but its components and organization evolve dramatically. How can that be? Our first foray into this fascinating question is up now on biorxiv: 🧪 1/12 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

@zjmaggiexu.bsky.social's story on suctorian trap structure adaptation is now online in @currentbiology.bsky.social , with new evolutionary analyses and modeling! This fall, Maggie will keep exploring predatory protists as a PD in @nbellono.bsky.social group; keep an eye out for her she's amazing!

#Symbiosis Magnetoreception in a freshwater ciliate arises from endosymbiosis The endosymbiotic bacteria produce magnetite crystals, allowing the protist to move efficiently in stratified waters http://dlvr.it/TSYMwZ

Thank you so much to everyone who made it to #BSP2026 in beautiful, sunny Glasgow!!! (We asked the weather to behave while everyone was around)! The @bspparasitology.bsky.social 2027 meeting will be in Cardiff! I hope everyone enjoyed themselves! Like Glasgow, People Make #Parasitology! 🥳🧬🧫🔬

Our Spring meeting starts today in Glasgow! All the best to all those presenting @bspparasitology.bsky.social

New preprint! We identified many components that localize to the structure involved in "eating" in a marine organism. #ProtistOnSky #diplonemid www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Final version @nature.com of our paper describing unconventional multicellular development in a choanoflagellate inhabiting an extreme environment. A ton of new data since the first @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social preprint (which we've kept updating). A brief 🧵 (carried over from the old place)

Now in Nature Comms w/ @ritatewari.bsky.social, Pushkar Sharma & @ryanase.bsky.social (thanks!). Aurora kinases fascinate me: single ancestor - parallel duplications in eukaryotes - paralogs with distinct functions. ARK1 is the CPC Aurora in the malaria parasite. rdcu.be/e5NRT #plasmodium #mitosis

Before he passed away in 2021, Tom Cavalier-Smith had drafted parts of his autobiography. It's now 'published' because Gáspár Jékely put a lot of effort in! Please enjoy and share: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

What I have been arguing is that without knowing the root position, one cannot conclude that Euglenozoa (or any group) are monophyletic. You make an assumption that the root is not within Euglenozoa when you say Euglenozoa are monophyletic.

I appreciate the comments by Max Raas, Eelco Tromer and others on my paper published last year "Hypothesis that ancestral eukaryotes sexually proliferated without kinetochores or mitosis". However, I do not think their critiques can reject my hypothesis. For details, please read the paper. 1/n

Euglenozoa are paraphyletic if the eukaryotic root lies between glycomonads and the rest of eukaryotes. Response to 'The LECA had a conventional kinetochore and the kinetoplastid kinetochore is a derived feature' pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41685547/

Great to see our paper on light-intensity dependent swimming patterns in #Chlamydomonas out now in Phys Rev Lett. as an Editors' suggestion! With a nice commentary by @philipcball.bsky.social. Chlamy actively modulate the beat planes of their #cilia! journals.aps.org/prl/abstract... #protistsonsky

Thank you @mollyherring.bsky.social for the stunning showcase 😍 Like what you see? Come ExM with us! Let’s flood the internet with microbial marvels 🦠 #ProtistsOnSky #MicroEvoSky 🧪🔬🌍 @dudinlab.bsky.social @centriolelab.bsky.social @moorefound.bsky.social @embl.org @erc.europa.eu @embo.org

New PNAS study identifies ESBX, a protein controlling which surface coat gene is active in sleeping sickness parasites - key to immune evasion. @tiengwe-tryplab.bsky.social @zephyris-science.bsky.social @fariatrypslab.bsky.social www.imperial.ac.uk/news/article...

Another #notTHECover unfortunately. But this gorgeous, Tron-like vibe, drawn by the amazing @munafomarzia.bsky.social for our recent #ExM work with @gautamdey.bsky.social & @centriolelab.bsky.social will still be printed out in the lab. Read here: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

The discovery of the first kinetochore proteins (CENP-A, CENP-B, CENP-C) was reported by Bill Earnshaw and Naomi Rothfield in 1985 in Chromosoma. Forty years later, Chromosoma/Chromosome Research has published a special issue (most articles are open access) link.springer.com/collections/...

Final version is out! Our large-scale cryo-ET dataset 🔬 of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii 🦠 is now published in @cp-molcell.bsky.social Huge collaborative effort! So glad to see the community already using it to develop new resources & tools. Check it out here: shorturl.at/z4i4c #CryoEM #CryoET

Thanks @jcellsci.bsky.social for this opportunity to contribute to your centenary collection with our take on the state of the field - 10 years after its modern reincarnation 🧪🌍 W/ @alebenoit.bsky.social @eelcotromer.bsky.social @fritzlaylin.bsky.social journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

New in ACS SynBio: led by Dennis Bolshakov, we used the awesome power of yeast to define how expression levels, noise, and sequence program the dynamics of synthetic protein waves, allowing us to genetically encode new cellular timescales stable over generations! pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....

Are you very busy but still want to learn what Aphelids are and why they are important to understand the evolution of Fungi? Then check out our “Quick guide” on Aphelids published in collaboration with @deemteam.bsky.social, Sergey and Guifré. #protistsonsky doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

Anatomy and mechanics of tsetse fly blood feeding www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.08.692967v1

#Diplonemids are among the most diverse & abundant #protists in the deep #ocean. This study localises >5,000 proteins of #Paradiplonema papillatum, revealing #organelle compartmentalisation, including a membrane coated with carbohydrate-degrading enzymes @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/3XvmpIO

Differential contributions of β tubulin isotypes to acentrosomal oocyte meiosis in C. elegans https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.03.692175v1

Our new paper is out in Nature Communications! 🎉 We explore how Toxoplasma gondii organizes parasite development, combining cell biology and expansion microscopy to reveal new structural insights. #Toxoplasma @meissnerlab.bsky.social @natcomms.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New Online! Critical constituents and assembly principles of centriole biogenesis in human cells

Our attempt to give multinucleate cells the spotlight they deserve (seriously, they’re everywhere), led by the fearless @mrosjac.bsky.social and with @Markus Ganter doi.org/10.32942/X2M... We’d love your feedback while this goes through the peer review process! #MicroEvoSky #ProtistsonSky 🧪🌏

How do new centromeres evolve while staying compatible with the division machinery? Discover it in our new Nature paper! We show centromeres transition gradually via a mix of drift, selection, and sex, reaching new states that still work with the kinetochore. 👉 doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09779-1

How do cells adapt morphology to function? In a 🔥 preprint by @zjmaggiexu.bsky.social , with @dudinlab.bsky.social and @amyweeks.bsky.social , we identify a self-organizing single-cell morphology circuit that optimizes the feeding trap structure of the suctorian P. collini. 🧵 tinyurl.com/4k8nv926

The flagellar pocket collar (FPC) is a cytoskeletal structure essential for nutrient uptake & immune evasion in #Trypanosome. @mbonhivers.bsky.social &co use U-ExM to provide novel insights into FPC biogenesis, and reveal 2 unknown cytoskeletal structures @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4n3bWi6

Time for a thread!🧵 How different is the molecular organization of thylakoids in “higher” plants🌱? To find out, we teamed up with @profmattjohnson.bsky.social to dive into spinach chloroplasts with #CryoET ❄️🔬. Curious? ..Read on! #TeamTomo #PlantScience 🧪 🧶🧬 🌾 elifesciences.org/articles/105... 1/🧵

🌱 Using ‘compelling’ methods, including #CryoET, researchers mapped spinach thylakoid membranes at single-molecule precision, revealing how photosynthetic complexes are organised and settling long-standing debates on chloroplast architecture. buff.ly/j3TSIkn

Our 2025 Sep issue bit.ly/2N9R8Es reviews species sanitation & structural resilience in malaria control, animal trypanosomosis control, parasite genome organization, Leishmania attachment in sandflies, nonchemotherapeutic nematode control, tick & host microbiotas, parasitic neural manipulation &more

A big welcome to everyone who has joined us for the @bspparasitology.bsky.social trypanosomiasis and leishmaniasis meeting this week in the beautiful city of Ceske Budějovice!

Sub-cellular chemical mapping in bacteria using correlated cryogenic electron and mass spectrometry imaging Congrats Hannah Ochner and authors on this important paper! Strong collaboration with @kiranrpatil.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/... @mrclmb.bsky.social @wellcometrust.bsky.social

New work on ARK1 (AURKB?) in Plasmodium (malaria parasite) with @ritatewari.bsky.social and Pushkar Sharma. CPC in Plasmodium is (ofcourse..) different compared to conventional models: two INCENPs, no borealin/survivin - mainly at spindle microtubules/MTOCs. Special thanks to @ryanase.bsky.social!

Pleased to share our new preprint: "Plasmodium ARK1 regulates spindle formation during atypical mitosis and forms a divergent chromosomal passenger complex". Many thanks to our collaborators. @ritatewari.bsky.social @eelcotromer.bsky.social @davidguttery.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New paper is out! We have studied the cute tiny Discocelia plataet sp. n. to obtain the first molecular data of the order Discocelida and clarify its cell structure. All this for a better understanding of the evolution of Cercozoa. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

How do parasites strategically organise their genomes to influence gene expression? If you’re curious, check our latest review in @cp-trendsparasitol.bsky.social ! @biologyatyork.bsky.social @ybri-uoy.bsky.social @pasteur.fr www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

My attempt to become a professor was unsuccessful again but the diplonema tagging paper is now published in Open Biology. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...