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Reposted by Freddy Boutrot

Marc Somssich @somssich.bsky.social · 10h

Nataliia Rybchenko from @kwsgroup.bsky.social Ukraine presented her 'Sunflower' documentary at the #KWSScienceSlam.
Ukraine is the global leader in sunflower oil production, but amid the war, the sunflower has also become a symbol of freedom for Ukraine.

Documentary:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u2U...

Nataliia Rybchenko on stage presenting her documentary on Sunflower production in Ukraine. The slide behind her shows Sunflowers on the right, and text on the left. The text says: "The idea behind the film: The sunflower is more than a strategic crop, it's a symbol of resilience, heritage, and life - a land that keeps giving, even in dark times. Stories of science, business, culture, and emotion reveal its meaning. Our film's title, 'Sunflower: Meanings that seed the future', reflects this.

Nataliia Rybchenko on stage. The slide behind her shows a sunflower field and the the title 'Sunflower in Ukraine: A pillar crop amid challenges' Below are some facts: Sunflower is among Ukraine's top 3 profitable crops, Ukraine is global leader in sunflower oil production and exports, 27 % of the arable land is no longer available due to occupation, landmines, active war, 30 % of sowing area is at risk because of proximity to the active combat zones of the war.

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Reposted by Freddy Boutrot

Thomas WIDIEZ @thomaswidiez.bsky.social · 3d

🌽 Maize vs. Fusarium 🌽

Overexpressing a maize lipoxygenase (ZmLOX4) boosts resistance to Fusarium infection.

Glad that our maize Gene editing & transformation platform, at @rdplab.bsky.social, contributed to this research, led by the Lanubile's Lab.

▶️ doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...

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Reposted by Freddy Boutrot

bioRxiv Plant Bio @biorxiv-plants.bsky.social · 2d

A secreted citrus protease cleaves an outer membrane protein of the Huanglongbing pathogen https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.06.680679v1

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Reposted by Freddy Boutrot

Journal of Experimental Botany @jxbotany.bsky.social · 3d

💡 SPECIAL ISSUE VIEWPOINT 💡

Immune proteases are promising targets for protein engineering 🛠️ to boost disease resistance in plants 🌾 - Schuster et al.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...

#PlantScience 🧪 @marischuster.bsky.social @aciattoni.bsky.social

Fig. 1.Four classes of roles of immune proteases illustrated via examples. (i) Pathogen perception: Required for Cladosporium Resistance-3 (Rcr3) protease is inhibited by the fungal avirulence effector Avr2. The Rcr3-Avr2 complex is recognized by the immune receptor Cf-2, triggering a defence response (Kruger et al, 2002). (ii) Regulation of the immune response: METACASPASE 4 (MC4) is activated by calcium upon wounding or pathogen attack. MC4 cleaves tonoplast-located ProPEP1 releasing PEP1 to the apoplast where it is perceived by PEP RECEPTORS (PEPRs) thereby initiating defence responses (Hander et al, 2019). (iii) Counteracting pathogen effectors: soybean aspartic protease GmAP5, degrades the Phytophthora sojae virulence factor glycoside hydrolase family 12 (GH12) protein, XEG1 (Xia et al., 2020). (iv) Direct pathogen attack: secreted aspartic proteases (SAPs) cleave Pseudomonas syringae MucD protein thereby suppressing bacterial growth (Wang et al., 2019).

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Danve Castroverde @danvec.bsky.social · 6d

Engineered geminivirus replicons enable rapid in planta directed evolution

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Engineered geminivirus replicons enable rapid in planta directed evolution

Directed evolution can rapidly generate genetic variants with new and enhanced properties, yet efficient platforms for performing such evolution directly in plant cells have been lacking. We developed...

www.science.org

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Reposted by Freddy Boutrot

ZMBP @zmbp-tuebingen.bsky.social · 7d

Have you noticed someone new here? 👇
Welcome @mpcontreras.bsky.social, our new junior group leader at the ZMBP!
#newPI #plantscience #MPMI

Isabel Monte @isabelmonte.bsky.social · 7d

Thanks Sebastian @pfeilmeier.bsky.social for coming to the @zmbp-tuebingen.bsky.social for a #TRR356 seminar. We have all enjoyed discussing with you about #MPMI, Xanthomonas, hydathodes and more!

Three ZMBP junior PIs (Mau, Margot and Isa) and Sebastian sitting in a bar with some empty glasses

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Reposted by Freddy Boutrot

Gabriel Mendoza-Rojas @gabmrojas.bsky.social · 9d

🧵How does a pathogen know it has entered its host?

New preprint!🎉It’s a pleasure to share my first first-author preprint from my PhD journey!
We uncover a novel co-evolved peptide–GPCR system in the fungus Ustilago maydis that senses host entry and triggers infection (doi.org/10.1101/2025...)
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bioRxiv Microbiology @biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · 11d

A co-evolved peptide-GPCR system senses host entry to drive fungal infection https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.26.678928v1

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Michael Hothorn @structplantbio.bsky.social · 9d

Amazing work by the Santiago lab @unil.bsky.social. The malectin-LRR receptor kinase IGP1 senses cello-oligomers to alert the plant immune system & enhance disease resistance. Very nice discovery & mechanism.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Freddy Boutrot @freddyboutrot.bsky.social · 10d

A RALF-brassinosteroid signaling circuit regulates Arabidopsis hypocotyl cell shape doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

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Helen Brabham @helenbrabs.bsky.social · 10d

Super excited to see our work on the NLRseek program finally published 🥳 Here we identify new NLRs against major wheat pathogens and present a pipeline for NLR identification. Huge thank you to all of the co-authors for bringing this work together! @matthewmoscou.bsky.social rdcu.be/eIGvv

Discovery of functional NLRs using expression level, high-throughput transformation and large-scale phenotyping

Nature Plants - Rapid discovery of functional resistance genes is enabled by a high-expression signature and high-throughput transformation. This approach identified 31 new resistance genes for...

rdcu.be

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Reposted by Freddy Boutrot

International Society for Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions @ismpmi.bsky.social · 12d

Couldn’t make it to Cologne? No problem—IS-MPMI Rewind is here!

Get access: https://bit.ly/4mDryZg

Members: $49 | Nonmembers: $79
Congress attendees can access Rewind as part of their registration.

#2025ISMPMI #ISMPMIrewind

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GeminiTeamLab @geminiteamlab.bsky.social · Sep 9

📢 A Junior Professorship (W1, tenure track) is open at the Center for Plant Molecular Biology at Uni Tübingen (@zmbp-tuebingen.bsky.social) — to work on plant protein biochemistry (composition, structure, dynamics, or regulation of protein complexes). 🌱 Great opportunity — Apply by Oct 17th!

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Isabelle Fudal @ifudal.bsky.social · 15d

Now published in Plant Pathology.
'Molecular Investigation of Rlm3 From Rapeseed as a Potential Broad‐Spectrum Resistance Gene Against Fungal Pathogens Producing Structurally Conserved Effectors' - Talbi - Plant Pathology - Wiley Online Library bsppjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

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Freddy Boutrot @freddyboutrot.bsky.social · 16d

CEPR2 perceives group II CEPs to regulate cell surface receptor-mediated immunity in Arabidopsis doi.org/10.1371/jour...

CEPR2 perceives group II CEPs to regulate cell surface receptor-mediated immunity in Arabidopsis

Author summary To protect themselves against pathogens, plants have evolved a sophisticated and intricate immune system that allows pathogen detection and the activation of appropriate defense respons...

doi.org

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Volker Lipka @volkerlipka.bsky.social · 17d

We proudly present a new preprint by Leon Pierdzig et al: Wall teichoic acids, glycopolymers specific to Gram-positive bacteria, trigger defense and cell death in Arabidopsis. Cysteine-rich RLKs act as key components in their perception. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

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bioRxiv Plant Bio @biorxiv-plants.bsky.social · 18d

Cysteine-rich receptor-like kinases mediate Wall Teichoic Acid perception in Arabidopsis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.18.677107v1

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Ken Shirasu @shirasulab.bsky.social · 21d

Well done, Max! Neofunctionalized RGF pathways drive haustorial organogenesis in parasitic plants | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Neofunctionalized RGF pathways drive haustorial organogenesis in parasitic plants

Plant peptide hormones regulate and induce the parasitic plant specialized organ for connecting to and feeding from the host.

www.science.org

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Reposted by Freddy Boutrot

Ksenia Krasileva @kseniakrasileva.bsky.social · 21d

New: ‘Kronos’ #wheat genome preprint
• PacBio+Hi-C; 99.9% BUSCO
• 2.3k curated NLR loci (1,089 high conf)
• 3k EMS datasets re-mapped; 📈 new mutations
• Curated smallRNA atlas
🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
zenodo.org/records/1021...
#genomics #openscience
team effort led by Dr Kyungyong Seong 💫

The Annotated Blueprint: Integrated Functional Genomic Resources for a Model Tetraploid Wheat Triticum turgidum cv. Kronos

Triticum turgidum cv. Kronos is a tetraploid wheat cultivar that underpins one of the richest community platforms for functional genomics. Over the past decade, about 3,000 exome- and promoter-capture...

www.biorxiv.org

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Mariana Schuster @marischuster.bsky.social · 21d

Just 🤯

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

Charting γ-secretase substrates by explainable AI - Nature Communications

Comparative Physicochemical Profiling (CPP), an interpretable machine learning algorithm, identifies physicochemical signatures of γ-secretase substrates, capturing features hidden in sequences and en...

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Freddy Boutrot

nikogeldner.bsky.social @nikogeldner.bsky.social · 22d

Call for a tenure-track position at our Department of Plant Molecular Biology in Lausanne! We are searching for promising early-career researchers in the broad field of plant-organismal interactions. Deadline: November 30, 2025 - Please re-post!

career5.successfactors.eu/career?caree...

Career Opportunities: DBMV: Tenure Track Assistant Professor towards Associate Professor in the field of Plant-organism (22484)

career5.successfactors.eu

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Gitta Coaker @gittacoaker.bsky.social · 22d

Happy to share this review on the diversity of resistance in Triticeae. I learned a lot writing it. Heavy lifting by Yinghui Li, Liubov Govta, and @yichangsung.bsky.social with our long-time collaborator Tzion Fahima.
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

The Spectrum of Diverse Disease-Resistance Genes Cloned and Characterized in the Triticeae Tribe | Annual Reviews

The Triticeae tribe comprises species representing some of the world's largest food and forage crops, including common wheat, durum, barley, rye, and oat. Crop yields are continuously threatened ...

www.annualreviews.org

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Christina Steidele @steidele.bsky.social · 24d

Happy to share our pre-print!

bioRxiv Plant Bio @biorxiv-plants.bsky.social · 26d

Multi-omics of barley Fusarium Head Blight converge on pathogen-triggered biosynthesis of aromatic amino acid derived chemical defense compounds https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.08.674812v1

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Freddy Boutrot @freddyboutrot.bsky.social · 24d

An apoplastic fungal effector disrupts N-glycosylation of ZmLecRK1, inducing its degradation to suppress disease resistance in maize doi.org/10.1038/s414...

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Reposted by Freddy Boutrot

Edel Pérez-López 🇨🇦 @edelplopez.bsky.social · 27d

Resistance gene enrichment sequencing refines the Brassica napus NLRome url: academic.oup.com/plphys/artic...

Resistance gene enrichment sequencing refines the Brassica napus NLRome

Resistance gene enrichment sequencing produces a complete repertoire of nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat receptors for Brassica napus, overcoming pri

academic.oup.com

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Dan Sloan @sloanevolab.bsky.social · Sep 8

The Department of Biology at Colorado State University is hiring an Assistant Professor in the area of plant-microbe interactions! Please spread the word!

jobs.colostate.edu/postings/165...

Assistant Professor Plant-Microbe Interactions

We seek a creative, collaborative, and visionary plant biologist to establish an internationally recognized research program at the forefront of plant-microbe interactions aimed at understanding how t...

jobs.colostate.edu

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