BULLETIN 1
Sonia Jannat: defying odds, reaping success as a combine harvester MSP

 

 

CGIAR October 12 2025

In the male-dominated realm of agricultural machinery services, Sonia Jannat, a 28-year-old from Jhenaidah, Bangladesh, has inscribed her name as a successful Machinery Solution Provider (MSP). Her determination—and the transformative power of new technologies—has launched her on an extraordinary journey of empowerment and financial independence.
Growing up in a farming household, Sonia was already familiar with cultivation. Rooted in agriculture, she harbored a longstanding ambition to make a meaningful impact in this field. To realize her vision, she consistently stayed abreast of the latest technologies and machinery designed to boost production while minimizing labor and time. However, life took an unexpected turn when her father fell ill with heart disease, forcing Sonia to shoulder the responsibility of financially supporting her family while pursuing her honors degree. This phase of hardship proved to be a turning point in her life.
See more https://www.cgiar.org/news-events/news/sonia-jannat-transforming-farming-bangladesh/

 

BULLETIN 2
FAO Calls for Building Safe, Sustainable, and Equitable Animal Feed Systems

 

Transforming feed systems requires science-based, inclusive, and practical regulations, as well as collective action. This is according to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Director-General QU Dongyu, who officially opened the 2025 Global Forum for Animal Feed and Feed Regulators held early this month in Rome. The forum gathered policymakers, scientists, producers, civil society, and private sector representatives to find ways to ensure animal feed's safety, nutrition, and sustainability.
Building on the past forum held in 2023, this year's two-day event focused on sharing cutting-edge knowledge and innovations in feed technologies and processes. The main goal of the discussions were boosting feed availability and promoting sustainable and safe use of locally available feed sources.
FAO highlighted the need for safe and quality animal feed as it directly impacts food security, human nutrition, livelihoods, animal and public health, and the environment. Poorly-managed feed production may lead to deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, and biodiversity loss.
Read the media release from FAO.
See https://www.isaaa.org/kc/cropbiotechupdate/article/default.asp?ID=21540

 

SCIENTIFIC NEWS

HISTONE DEACETYLASE-1 is required for epigenome stability in Neurospora crassa

Felicia Ebot-Ojong, Aileen R. Ferraro, Rochelle E. Yap, Farh Kaddar, Clayton Hull-Crew, Ashley W. Scadden, Abigail M. Deaven, Andrew D. Klocko, and Zachary A. Lewis

PNAS; September 29, 2025; 122 (40) e2503876122; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2503876122

 

  

Significance
In eukaryotes, certain regions of the genome are packaged into specialized heterochromatin domains. Constitutive heterochromatin forms at repeat-rich DNA where it represses selfish genetic elements such as transposons. In contrast, facultative heterochromatin represses context- or lineage-specific genes. Remarkably, both constitutive and facultative heterochromatin states can be maintained over the lifetime of an organism by histone modifications and histone modifying enzymes that form positive feedback loops. Here, we report that mutation of histone deacetylase-1, a constitutive heterochromatin-specific enzyme, leads to progressive epigenome defects in constitutive and facultative heterochromatin. This work highlights a critical role for histone deacetylation in maintenance of epigenome structure and provides a model for defective heterochromatin maintenance associated with human disease states.
Abstract
Polycomb group (PcG) proteins form chromatin modifying complexes that stably repress lineage- or context-specific genes in animals, plants, and some fungi. Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2) catalyzes trimethylation of lysine 27 on histone H3 (H3K27me3) to assemble repressive chromatin. In the model fungus Neurospora crassa, H3K27me3 deposition is regulated by the H3K36 methyltransferase ASH1 and components of constitutive heterochromatin including the H3K9me3-binding protein HETEROCHROMATIN PROTEIN 1 (HP1). Hypoacetylated histones are a defining feature of both constitutive heterochromatin and PcG-repressed chromatin, but how histone deacetylases (HDACs) contribute to normal H3K27me3 and transcriptional repression within PcG-repressed chromatin is poorly understood. We performed a genetic screen to identify HDACs required for repression of PRC2-methylated genes. In the absence of HISTONE DEACETYLASE-1 (HDA-1), PRC2-methylated genes were activated and H3K27me3 was depleted from typical PRC2-targeted regions. At constitutive heterochromatin, HDA-1 deficient cells displayed reduced H3K9me3, hyperacetylation, and aberrant enrichment of H3K27me3 and H3K36me3. CHROMODOMAIN PROTEIN-2 (CDP-2) is required to target HDA-1 to constitutive heterochromatin and is also required for normal H3K27me3 patterns. Patterns of aberrant H3K27me3 were distinct in isogenic ∆hda-1 strains, suggesting that loss of HDA-1 causes stochastic or progressive epigenome dysfunction. To test this, we constructed a new Δhda-1 strain and performed a laboratory “aging” experiment. Deletion of hda-1 led to progressive epigenome decay over hundreds of nuclear divisions. Together, our data indicate that HDA-1 is a critical regulator of epigenome stability in N. crassa.
See https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2503876122

 

  

Figure:
HDA-1 is required for the repression of PRC2-methylated genes. (A) The boxplots show the average level of expression for all PRC2-target genes (n = 679) for the indicated strains, with the x-axis values corresponding to log2-transformed transcripts per million (TPM) read counts. Lines represent the median expression value, and the notches indicate the 95% CI. The ∆nst-3 strain was determined to be a heterokaryon and is labeled with an asterisk. (B) The heatmap shows relative expression levels of each PRC2-target gene for the indicated strains (n = 537 genes expressed in at least one strain). (C) The volcano plot shows differentially expressed genes for wild type and Δhda-1. Dark green spots correspond to PRC2-methylated genes that meet fold-change and statistical thresholds (log2[fold change] ± 1.5 and an adjusted P-value < 0.05). Black spots correspond to non-PRC2 methylated genes that meet the same fold-change and statistical threshold. Genes that do not meet statistical or fold-change thresholds are colored in pale green for PRC2-target genes or gray for non-PRC2 targets. (D) The Venn Diagram illustrates overlap between PRC2 target genes and genes upregulated in the ∆hda-1 or ∆set-7 strains.