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Reposted by Charles Melnyk

Xander Jones @xanderjones.bsky.social · 5d

Only a few days left to apply!

My group is looking for a postdoc to engineer and deploy new tools to precisely manipulate and decode how auxin coordinates plant morphogenesis.

@starmorph-syg.bsky.social

Research Associate - Reprogramming Development (closes 7 October 2025)

www.cam.ac.uk

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Reposted by Charles Melnyk

Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation @kawresearch.bsky.social · Sep 4

Plants are constantly under attack in nature But what determines whether they choose to defend themselves or heal their tissue? Charles Melnyk is conducting groundbreaking molecular research to understand their strategies
#research #science #plantscience @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social
shorturl.at/1jZ5W

Fight or heal – how do plants know what is best for them? | Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation

Plants are constantly under attack in nature. But what determines whether they choose to defend themselves or heal their tissue? Charles Melnyk is conducting groundbreaking molecular research to under...

shorturl.at

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Reposted by Charles Melnyk

Kalika Prasad @kalikaprasad.bsky.social · Jul 25

Our new paper is out!
1/14 How does an organ rebuild its shape after injury? It's not just about making new cells, but aligning them in the right direction — like bricks shaping a structure. We show that it's all driven by Cell Geometry!

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Wound repair in plants guided by cell geometry

Mathew et al. show that growth conflicts reshape cells after injury, forming rhomboidal geometries that trigger diagonal divisions. This reorients cell files to restore tapered morphology. A two-step ...

www.cell.com

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Reposted by Charles Melnyk

Plantae.org @plantaeofficial.bsky.social · Jul 23

Plant Science Research Weekly -- The hidden power of water in plant regeneration (Nature Plants) @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social (Summary by Ching Chan) buff.ly/9quikax

#PlantaePSRW

The hidden power of water in plant regeneration | Plantae

Plants are renowned for their remarkable ability to regenerate tissues and organs. Two typical regeneration pathways—de novo root regeneration (DNRR) and wound-induced callus (WIC) formation—enable…

buff.ly

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Reposted by Charles Melnyk

Mary Williams @PlantTeaching @plantteaching.bsky.social · Jul 18

Plant Science Research Weekly: July 18, 2025 plantae.org/plant-scienc... (3/3) The hidden power of water in plant regeneration; ; Unusual cell death pathway in maize endosperm; Herbivore bites promote plant growth in the succeeding year. @matthiaserb.bsky.social @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social

Following herbivory, a plant releases volatiles that trigger jasmonate signaling in nearby plants. This leads to a change in the soil bacteria, which subsequently promotes growth, defense and yield in subsequent plants.

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Reposted by Charles Melnyk

Stéphanie Robert @srobertgroup.bsky.social · Jul 14

Please spread the word: Position in plant development @umeaplantsciencecentre.se

Looking forward to having a new colleague!

www.upsc.se/jobs/6590-as...

Umeå Plant Science Centre - Associate Senior Lecturer in plant physiology with focus on plant embryo development

Umeå Plant Science Centre - A centre of excellence for experimental plant biology in Umeå Sweden. ©UPSC

www.upsc.se

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Charles Melnyk @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social · Jul 12

Interesting! Probably a piece of the Che was left on and grew back. Much less likely but maybe something chimeric or a hybrid? Chimeras have been seen in orange before (the Bizzarria). Have a look at these reviews:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Modern and historical uses of plant grafting to engineer development, stress tolerance, chimeras, and hybrids

Plant grafting has been practiced for millennia and recent developments have resulted in new species, new techniques and new applications appearing. Here, we review these advances focusing on develop...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Charles Melnyk @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social · Jul 8

9/n. A collaborative effort with Abdul Kareem, Anna van Wüllen, Ai Zhang, Gabriel Walckiers and Ellen Fasth. A huge thanks to our funders @erc.europa.eu, @kawresearch.bsky.social and @vetenskapsradet.bsky.social for supporting and enabling this research!

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Charles Melnyk @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social · Jul 8

8/n. An interesting outcome of this work is that high water availability is really good at regenerating roots and promoting in vitro regeneration (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20230752). If you want to improve your in vitro regeneration rates, try using lower agar concentrations in your media.

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Charles Melnyk @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social · Jul 8

7/n. What’s the relevance of this? We used air layering (www.rhs.org.uk/propagation/...) in tomato and found wet soil induced roots but dry soil induced callus. Thus, when wounds are in contact with water, roots form (think of plant propagation!) whereas under dry conditions, callus seals the wound

Air layering of plants / RHS

Air layering is a method of propagating new trees and shrubs from stems still attached to the parent plant. The stem is wrapped with damp moss to encourage roots to form.

www.rhs.org.uk

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Charles Melnyk @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social · Jul 8

6/n. High water promoted ethylene and jasmonic acid responses, and these hormones could shift the auxin maxima away from the wound likely via PIN transporters. Thus, high water induced ethylene and jasmonic acid to change PIN localisation and move auxin maxima away from the wound to promote rooting

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Charles Melnyk @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social · Jul 8

5/n. We found that water moved the auxin response maxima at the wound either away (distal) or towards (proximal) the cut. Distal response was associated with root formation while proximal response with callus formation. So the location of auxin response could induce different regeneration fates.

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Charles Melnyk @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social · Jul 8

4/n. What decides whether a wound forms roots or callus? Water! By changing water availability, we could transition between these two fates. High water promoted roots near the wound, whereas low water promoted callus formation at the wound. These processes seemed to antagonise one another

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Charles Melnyk @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social · Jul 8

3/n. Roots formed at wounds follow a lateral root formation pathway (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24642937) but what about callus from wounds? We used reporters and mutants to find that callus follows a procambium pathway suggesting that different regeneration fates used different molecular pathways.

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Charles Melnyk @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social · Jul 8

2/n. Regeneration is fundamental for plant survival but how do plants know what to regenerate? We sought to address this question using cut Arabidopsis petioles that can either form roots, callus or both at the site of wounding

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Charles Melnyk @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social · Jul 8

How do plants decide the fate of a wound and what to regenerate? Water availability! Abdul Kareem and colleagues show that regeneration outcomes after tissue cutting are controlled by water. A 🧵/n 👇
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Water availability positions auxin response maxima to determine plant regeneration fates - Nature Plants

This study reveals that water availability at the wound determines plant regeneration outcomes. High water availability induces root regeneration whereas low water availability triggers callus formati...

www.nature.com

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Charles Melnyk @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social · Jul 4

Beautiful work showing opposing gradients of gases activates regeneration in wounded Arabidopsis roots. Congrats to all authors! Some interesting future questions raised regarding aerial tissues and non-Arabidopsis. How do they activate regeneration? Next big questions for the field.

Ari Pekka Mähönen @apmahonen.bsky.social · Jul 2

How plants sense injury in their barrier tissue, periderm? Painstakingly detailed and amazing work by post doc Hiroyuki Iida shows that wounding is sensed by the diffusion of two gases: ethylene and oxygen. @treebiocoe.bsky.social‬ @erc.europa.eu‬ 1/x 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Plants monitor the integrity of their barrier by sensing gas diffusion - Nature

A study using Arabidopsis shows that plants can monitor the integrity of their outer barriers by sensing gas diffusion, enabling them to initiate wound repair to prevent water loss and pathogen entry.

www.nature.com

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Charles Melnyk @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social · Jul 4

Congratulations to all winners and finalists for their amazing science and excellent talks! I'm very pleased to be part of this group of scientists, and thankful to @mplantpcom.bsky.social for this award!

Molecular Plant & Plant Communications @mplantpcom.bsky.social · Jul 2

New! The winners of Rising Stars in Plant Sciences 2025 (RSPS2025) come out. Congratulations to Dr. Tonni Grube Andersen, Dr. Charles Melnyk, Dr. Li Wan, Dr. Bing Wang, and Dr. Zhen Yan!🎇🎇🎇

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Reposted by Charles Melnyk

Marc Somssich @somssich.bsky.social · Apr 16

Just like in Fashion - trends are also returning in #PlantScience.

ATM, Grafting is coming back!

Two recent reviews were dedicated to it:

First, Augstein & @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Then, @fritz-kragler.bsky.social & Bock:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Charles Melnyk @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social · Mar 21

Thanks Thomas and Hannes for highlighting our work. Great commentary and very well written!

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Reposted by Charles Melnyk

Tonni Andersen @tonnigrubeandersen.bsky.social · Mar 21

Finally!
Im so excited to present to culmination of many years of work from the fantastic Defeng Shen and some great collaborators. For details, I have made a digested thread below, but if you are more interested feel free to reach out (and read the paper of course).
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Apoplastic barriers are essential for nodule formation and nitrogen fixation in Lotus japonicus

Establishment of the apoplastic root barrier known as the Casparian strip occurs early in root development. In legumes, this area overlaps with nitrogen-fixing nodule formation, which raises the possi...

www.science.org

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Reposted by Charles Melnyk

Frank Hochholdinger @hochholdingerf.bsky.social · Mar 20

Great paper by the group of lab alumnus Changzheng Xu on auxin regulation of fiber development in poplar.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The auxin–PLETHORA 5 module regulates wood fibre development in Populus tomentosa - Nature Plants

The study reveals that PLETHORA 5, a transcription factor activated by auxin signalling in the vascular cambium, regulates cell expansion and cell wall thickening of fibres by directly repressing SND1...

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Charles Melnyk

Thomas Spallek @thomas-spallek.bsky.social · Mar 18

Please check out our Commentary on the recent PNAS paper from the @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social lab about systemic signals in Phtheirospermum japonicum:
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

www.pnas.org

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Charles Melnyk @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social · Mar 12

Thanks Suayb! 🙏

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Reposted by Charles Melnyk

Christine Faulkner @pdchristine.bsky.social · Mar 11

We're looking for a postdoc to join the lab to work on cell-to-cell communication via the apoplast. Candidate must be brave, as they will have to lead us (me) away from the plasmodesmata-lands we've inhabited for so long!

www.jic.ac.uk/vacancies/po...

Postdoctoral Researcher (Faulkner Group) | John Innes Centre

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Postdoctoral Researcher to join the Faulkner Group at the John Innes Centre, working on cutting-edge science in the field of Cell & Developmental Biology.

www.jic.ac.uk

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