Anders Sejr Hansen

Anders Sejr Hansen

@andersshansen.bsky.social

Associate Professor at MIT BE : http://ashansenlab.com Interested in understanding the relationship between 3D genome structure and function

2.7K followers1.3K following174 posts

Check out our new preprint led by @mileshuseyin.bsky.social unexpectedly discovering Polycomb 3D interactions that persist without cPRC1. Also look out for Miles who is on the faculty job market!

Miles Huseyin@mileshuseyin.bsky.social

(1/9) Excited to share my preprint on Polycomb 3D chromatin interactions from my postdoc with @andersshansen.bsky.social! We were surprised to find that canonical PRC1 doesn't seem to be the only contributor to these interactions: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted

Happy to share our new preprint! We find that PHC proteins help drive Polycomb-mediated 3D chromatin interactions, but some interaction strength remains independent of canonical PRC1. Really comprehensive work by @mileshuseyin.bsky.social. I had a lot of fun working on the imaging side :)

Miles Huseyin@mileshuseyin.bsky.social

(1/9) Excited to share my preprint on Polycomb 3D chromatin interactions from my postdoc with @andersshansen.bsky.social! We were surprised to find that canonical PRC1 doesn't seem to be the only contributor to these interactions: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted

Great to see this work @mileshuseyin.bsky.social out. Enjoyed seeing some of the data when he visited our lab, looking forward to digging in the details

bioRxiv Genomics@biorxiv-genomic.bsky.social

Dissection of Polycomb complexes reveals canonical PRC1-independent 3D chromatin interactions https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.13.758654v1

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted

Have you ever looked at a gene in IGV or a genome browser and wondered “What are all those (ATAC-seq/H3K27ac/CTCF ChIP-seq/…) peaks doing?” 🤔 I’m thrilled to share that we developed a new technology called Swap-seq to answer that exact question. Swap-seq: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.orgSystematic mapping of enhancers, silencers, and topological elements with prime editing deletion screensNoncoding regulatory elements in the human genome can control gene expression through distinct mechanisms, including acting as enhancers, silencers, or topological elements. However, we lack tools to ...

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted

Very interesting paper. These <10kb "protrusions" remind me, albeit at a different length scale, of the "looping out" of active regions from chromosome territories. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Anders Sejr Hansen@andersshansen.bsky.social

Very nice new paper from Paggi, Long, Zhang using physical modeling of RCMC data to reconstruct physical structures of euchromatin at the nucleosome scale: Euchromatin forms condensed domains and E-P interactions largely occur on the surface! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted

CpG islands are fascinating both from molecular mechanism point of view and in terms of evolutionary conservation in the context of elevated mutation rate of CpG dinucleotides in mammalian genomes. Lots of new insights from cool technical and theoretical advances from @robklose.bsky.social + lab.

Epigenetics Podcast@epigeneticspod.bsky.social

In the most recent episode we speak with @robklose.bsky.social, Professor of Genetics at the University of Oxford, about how CpG islands help control gene expression and chromatin regulation during development. #podcast #epigenetics Listen here: activemotif.com/podcasts-rob...

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted

We always knew you couldn't trust these antibody data sheets, but the extent to which it is essentially industry practice to manipulate data is truly shocking

Reese Richardson@reeserichardson.bsky.social

A massive update: At least ~15 companies~ are selling scientists antibodies using faked validation data. We've documented 18,000+ manipulated images on 17,000+ products sold by leading laboratory suppliers including Thermo Fisher, Abcam, Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Millipore Sigma and Bio-Techne. 1/🧵

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted

Glad to share that my preprint "ID2 secures cDC1 specification by antagonizing E proteins at a pleiotropic Zeb2 enhancer" is out today in Nature Immunology. This represents another major piece of my PhD work. www.nature.com/articles/s41... Original preprint thread: bsky.app/profile/feiy...

nature.comID2 secures cDC1 specification by antagonizing E proteins at a pleiotropic Zeb2 enhancer - Nature ImmunologyMurphy and colleagues report that the transcriptional regulator ID2 promotes cDC1 fate specification by antagonizing E protein activity at E-boxes within the Zeb2 enhancer and establish the Zeb2 −165-...
Feiya Ou@feiyaou.bsky.social

🧵1/8 Happy to share my new preprint “ID2 secures cDC1 specification by antagonizing E proteins at a pleiotropic Zeb2 enhancer.” I resolved why ID2 is essential for cDC1 lineage specification and uncovered a new paradigm of enhancers. Read here: www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-7...

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted

‼️🚨Out now in Molecular Cell - Our latest study 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐓 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐧𝐮𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐨𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝟑𝐝 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞: tinyurl.com/2xctvx38. It was a pleasure to lead this collaborative effort alongside @nilskrietenstein.bsky.social More in🧵below 🪡

tinyurl.comMaintenance of nucleosome organization through replication and transcription counteracts aberrant coalescence of active chromatinNucleosomes with their associated modifications organize and regulate the genome. It is unclear how this is integrated with the requirement of replica…

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted

Multi-way Micro-C to go beyond pair-wise interactions:

Marieke Oudelaar@mariekeoudelaar.bsky.social

📣 Preprint alert! We developed a method to analyze concurrent interactions between multiple chromatin regions at single alleles at sub-nucleosome resolution (multi-way Micro-Capture-C, mwMCC) & used this to study structural synergy within super-enhancers. 1/14 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted

How many TFs to you need to open chromatin at enhancers? Very excited to see this one out! Check out the augmented version with combinatorial motif mutant libraries in Figure 5! Very proud of @guidobarzaghi.bsky.social @valentinabaderna.bsky.social @embl.org

Guido Barzaghi@guidobarzaghi.bsky.social

📄 That's a wrap 📄 we're excited to share that the latest from @arnaudkr.bsky.social 's lab and Judith Zaugg's lab is at last online at doi.org/10.1038/s415.... Many thanks to my co-first @valentinabaderna.bsky.social and to @embl.org for the wonderful research environment.

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted

It was an honor to write this remembrance of Susumu Tonegawa (1939–2026) -- a scientist whose discoveries transformed biology and whose lab shaped generations of neuroscientists. I hope this piece captures even a small part of his remarkable legacy. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comSusumu Tonegawa (1939–2026) - Nature NeuroscienceOn 11 July 2026, neuroscience lost one of its most visionary scientists with the passing of Susumu Tonegawa at the age of 86. Across an extraordinary career spanning more than five decades, Tonegawa p...

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted

We just submitted a manuscript to biorxiv. Keep in mind that this hasn't been peer reviewed yet but is submitted to PNAS for peer review. Our lab has closed so it will be the 2nd to last paper we publish. Data for one final paper will be written up in my retirement www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.orgCohesin promotes genomic stability by suppressing unequal sister chromatid exchangeThe protein complex cohesin plays critical roles in genomic stability by tethering together sister chromatids at their pericentric regions and along their arms from S phase until anaphase. Cohesin-med...

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted

Happy to share my first preprint! We looked at how the 3D genome changes during red blood cell differentiation, especially at erythroid CREs. It was fun to work on this collab with many wonderful people from the @andersshansen.bsky.social and @bloodgenes.bsky.social labs esp. Chun-Jie.

Anders Sejr Hansen@andersshansen.bsky.social

(1/n) Excited to share close collab w @bloodgenes.bsky.social led by Varshini & Chun-jie et al How to induce expression of key genes while silencing much of the genome during Erythropoiesis? A: Matchmaker CREs load cohesin near key genes to promote looping & exp: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

View full thread

(11/n) Other "3D CREs" have been described incl. beautiful work on Facilitators (Kassouf/Higgs) & Range Extenders (Kvon). A key distinction, Matchmakers promote looping indirectly: Matchmakers mostly don't themselves form loops. Instead they promote crosser loops through targeted cohesin loading.

View full thread

(9/n) Working in primary human donor-derived cells prevents degron tagging of cohesin. But we perturbed STAG1/2&NIPBL in primary cells and STAG2 in myeloid cells and re-analyzed Blobel lab NIPBL&SMC3 erythroblast data. All perturbations consistent with Matchmaker cohesin-dependence.

View full thread

(7/n) Inspired by fountain work, we tested if moderate targeted cohesin loading can explain Matchmakers: stronger crosser loops without visible fountains. Varshini confirmed this w polymer sims. Interestingly, erythropoiesis lead to chromatin compaction, and compaction hides fountains in 3D maps.

(8/n) Matchmakers strengthen during erythropoiesis and correlate with stronger expression of key erythroid genes. KO of key matchmaker-binding TF NFE2 leads to modest reduction in matchmaking and nearby gene expression.

View full thread

(5/n) Prev work identified “orthogonal extrusion stripes” in 3D maps named “plumes” (de Wit), “jets” (Merkenschlager), “fountains” (Mirny, Meister, Ercan et al) and similar aggregate patterns (Vahedi, Xue, et al) Key distinction: Fountains are extrusion stripes at single loci, but not Matchmakers.

(6/n) In contrast to fountains, Matchmakers do not show "fountain pattern" at single loci. Instead, Matchmakers are composed of “crosser loops”. Matchmakers are "altruistic": they help nearby elements form loops largely without themselves engaging as a loop anchor.

View full thread

(4/n) As expected, pile-up analysis on CTCF sites and promoters show clear insulation. Varshini clustered eryTFs into 4 clusters and saw strong “anti-insulation” at clusters 3+4. We call cluster 3+4 eryTF "MatchMakers" because they match make loops across themselves, without forming loops directly

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted

Very happy to see this story finally out (link in comments)! We used low-input Capture Hi-C to profile promoter-anchored chromosomal interactions in Type 3 innate lymphoid cells (ILC3s) - rare tissue-resident lymphocytes that lack antigen receptors and regulate barrier immunity.

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted

Update: scE2G is now online at Nature Genetics! Since the preprint, we added a new benchmark on a fully held-out CRISPR dataset. scE2G continues to show state-of-the-art performance, reinforcing that it generalizes well nature.com/articles/s41588-026-02695-8 1/

Jesse Engreitz@jengreitz.bsky.social

Introducing scE2G: a new model to link enhancers to target genes using single-cell data. Excited that scE2G will enable building enhancer maps in hundreds of cell types in the human body! Wonderful collaboration with @randersson.bsky.social @613weilin.bsky.social @mayayayas.bsky.social Thread👇

Anders Sejr Hansen reposted