Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Gal Ofir

Jelena Godrijan 🫧❾🌊🦋 @godi.bsky.social · 3d

⚠️New paper ➡️ isolating >600 freshwater microbes using dilution-to-extinction and low-nutrient, lake-mimicking media.

🤯Expands cultured diversity to ~70 % of detected genera and enables physiological studies of streamlined oligotrophs.

🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#protistsonsky

Bringing the uncultivated microbial majority of freshwater ecosystems into culture - Nature Communications

A large fraction of aquatic bacteria remains uncultured. Here, the authors cultivated 627 strains of abundant freshwater bacteria from 14 European lakes, thus generating a collection that includes many previously uncultured, oligotrophic bacteria that may serve as model organisms.

www.nature.com

1 25 65

Reposted by Gal Ofir

Tung Le @tunglejic.bsky.social · 5d

Independent research fellowships leading to tenured positions at the John Innes Centre.

Repost = nice. Thank you very much!!!

John Innes Centre @johninnescentre.bsky.social · 5d

Shortlisted candidates will be invited to give a seminar at the Fellows Conference, which will be held on 10 March 2026.

Candidates who win Fellowships will be offered a Tenure Track Group Leader position from the outset, initially for 5 years.

Find out more: www.jic.ac.uk/training-car...

Independent Research Fellowships Leading to Tenured Faculty Positions | John Innes Centre

The John Innes Centre (JIC), is a world leading centre of excellence in plant and microbial sciences based on the Norwich Research Park, UK. We are inviting applications from outstanding researchers…

www.jic.ac.uk

79 45

Reposted by Gal Ofir

GeminiTeamLab @geminiteamlab.bsky.social · 5d

How do geminiviruses maximize their limited coding capacity? Our recent preprint uncovers splicing of viral transcripts as one more strategy used by this viral family. We show that RNA splicing is prevalent in the geminivirus TYLCV — and required for infectivity! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Pervasive splicing in a plant DNA virus

Viruses maximize their limited coding space through strategies that increase transcript and protein diversity. In mammalian viruses, splicing is a well-established mechanism for proteome expansion, ye...

www.biorxiv.org

24 44

Gal Ofir @galofir.bsky.social · 5d

This one by @helenbrabs.bsky.social !

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...

www.nature.com

1 5

Reposted by Gal Ofir

Danve Castroverde @danvec.bsky.social · 5d

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

1 8 17

Reposted by Gal Ofir

Lukas Fiedler @lukyfiedler.bsky.social · 6d

Previously on BioRxiv, and now a final version of our paper is out! What a great lesson in plant self-organization: Auxin targets its own transporter through a cell-surface kinase complex in a positive feedback loop www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

ABP1/ABL3-TMK1 cell-surface auxin signaling targets PIN2-mediated auxin fluxes for root gravitropism

In gravistimulated roots, gravity perception in the columella redirects the flow of the plant hormone auxin toward the lower root side, where it inhibits cell elongation for downward root bending. Thi...

www.cell.com

3 4 9

Reposted by Gal Ofir

Manlio De Domenico @manlius.bsky.social · 7d

Nearly 4,000 y ago, Egyptians finished their pyramids

Meanwhile, across the ocean, termites in NE Brazil were building something even larger: a hidden empire of 200M mounds, over an area the size of UK 🌍🐜

Still active today, a masterpiece of non-human engineering!
🧪🌐 HT @ricardsole.bsky.social

1 11 44

Reposted by Gal Ofir

Victor S @vmourade.bsky.social · 8d

New Preprint alert! It is finally here!
M incognita is a remarkable pathogen: extremely specialised with the widest host range (> 3,000). All this while reproducing parthenogenetically! We analyse the infection phenotype and transcriptome of 9 hosts (6 orders) at 25 dpi.
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

The host range paradox of Meloidogyne incognita: a physiological and transcriptomic analysis of nine susceptible interactions across six plant orders

The plant-parasitic nematode Meloidogyne incognita is the pathogen with the broadest host range among all known biotrophic interactions. This species is also the single most damaging of a group of agr...

www.biorxiv.org

1 6 8

Reposted by Gal Ofir

Remco Stam @rstam.bsky.social · 7d

Very happy to see this work finally online!
Resistance against necrotrophic pathogens is not generally conserved. When comparing five wild tomato spp, we saw that one spp co-opted a different mechanism against Sclerotinia infection!

KunzLab@LMU @kunzlab.bsky.social · 7d

This looks very interesting. Congrats @rstam.bsky.social et al. Co-option of transcription factors drives evolution of quantitative disease resistance against a necrotrophic pathogen url: academic.oup.com/plcell/artic...

Co-option of transcription factors drives evolution of quantitative disease resistance against a necrotrophic pathogen

Quantitative disease resistance in a wild tomato genotype evolved through species-specific regulatory network rewiring, with an ancient transcription facto

academic.oup.com

13 21

Reposted by Gal Ofir

Erica Dinatale @ericadinatale.bsky.social · 7d

So happy to see my first first-author paper published! 🎈
A short thread on how Ectocarpus and its TE secrets have kept me busy lately:

rdcu.be/eITQH

Characterization of the transposable element landscape shaping the Ectocarpus genome | Genome Biology

rdcu.be

5 20 64

Reposted by Gal Ofir

David L. Stern @gallseeker.bsky.social · 7d

It's official! We are moving to Stowers!
Very exciting opportunity to expand our studies of insect-plant interactions. We have many opportunities available in biochemistry, development, behavior, genetics, evolution, genomics, AI, and even pest control. Interested in any of these things? Reach out!

Stowers Institute @stowersinstitute.bsky.social · 8d

NEWS🎉 We’re excited to announce @hhmijanelia.bsky.social Investigator David Stern will join the Institute from Janelia Research Campus. His lab studies how aphids transform plants at the genetic level, uncovering secrets of #evolution & new strategies for pest control. @hhmi.org bit.ly/4np96Fb

Stowers Institute recruits renowned developmental and evolutionary…

David Stern, Ph.D., brings groundbreaking research on insect–plant interactions for next-generation pest control to the Institute.

bit.ly

12 18 72

Reposted by Gal Ofir

eLife @elife.bsky.social · 8d

The origins of Wnt signalling reveal a protein superfamily across the Tree of Life.
buff.ly/CvRLoAy

3 9

Reposted by Gal Ofir

Helen Brabham @helenbrabs.bsky.social · 9d

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

3 31 45

Reposted by Gal Ofir

IBMP | Institut de biologie moléculaire des plantes @ibmp-cnrs.bsky.social · 9d

🦠🌱 New review in Annual Review of Virology:
Double-stranded RNA sensing underpins antiviral immunity in plants, linking RNA silencing, RNA decay, PTI & ETI. By Manfred Heinlein (IBMP)
#PlantScience #Virology #rna
▶️https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-virology-092623-101447

2 4 18

Reposted by Gal Ofir

Zamin Iqbal @zaminiqbal.bsky.social · 12d

Delighted to see our paper studying the evolution of plasmids over the last 100 years, now out! Years of work by Adrian Cazares, also Nick Thomson @sangerinstitute.bsky.social - this version much improved over the preprint. Final version should be open access, apols.
Thread 1/n

14 150 300

Reposted by Gal Ofir

German Society for Plant Sciences (DBG) @plantsciencedbg.bsky.social · 12d

#PlantSciJobs #PlantSciJob

W2-Professorship: Plant Genetics

@uni-kiel.de

Deadline: 19 October 2025
www.deutsche-botanische-gesellschaft.de/en/job-openi...

Job Openings

www.deutsche-botanische-gesellschaft.de

13 7

Reposted by Gal Ofir

Thanvi Srikant @thanvisrikant.bsky.social · 12d

Excited to share that I’ve been awarded an @snsf.ch Ambizione grant to begin my independent research, starting summer 2026 at the Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zürich! I will use (epi)genomics to study altitude adaptation in Arabis alpina - stay tuned for more updates & PhD opportunities!

10 7 38

Reposted by Gal Ofir

georghochberg.bsky.social @georghochberg.bsky.social · 13d

A new preprint from the lab. I won't do a tweetorial until this is peer reviewed, but I think it's a banger, led by
@JedNzy. It's about Rubisco and what chaperones are really for. He's on the market, get him while you can. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Origin of chaperone dependence and assembly complexity in Rubisco biogenesis

Molecular chaperones assist with the folding and assembly of protein clients. Consequently, they are essential to diverse cellular functions. In most aerobic photosynthetic organisms such as B-cyanoba...

www.biorxiv.org

14 28

Reposted by Gal Ofir

Addgene @addgene.bsky.social · 13d

Protein labeling made simple.
Self-labeling tags like HaloTag® let you visualize proteins in real time with the dye or ligand of your choice. Find out how these systems expand your experimental toolkit.
🔗 Read the blog:

blog.addgene.org

Live and Let Dye: Self-Labeling Protein Tags

twp.ai

5 18

Reposted by Gal Ofir

Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 13d

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

730 10K 30K

Reposted by Gal Ofir

BejaLab @bejalab.bsky.social · 14d

A haplotype-based evolutionary history of barley domestication www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A haplotype-based evolutionary history of barley domestication - Nature

The evolutionary history of barley is analysed using ancient and modern DNA.

www.nature.com

4 4

Reposted by Gal Ofir

Dan Kliebenstein @spicybotrytis.bsky.social · 14d

Fun review of Arabidopsis anti-pathogen metabolism with @somssich.bsky.social and @tonnigrubeandersen.bsky.social.

Started to make a complete catalogue and had to focus. Even with all this knowledge, we still haven't studied most Arabidopsis enzymes or metabolites doi.org/10.1093/plph...

Guns in Rosettes: The Arabidopsis chemical weapons arsenal

Arabidopsis remains one of the best studied models today and has a number of remarkable chemical defense systems which actively engage, interact and preven

doi.org

4 21 34

Reposted by Gal Ofir

Michael Meers @mpmeers.bsky.social · 16d

We published a detailed protocol for our Plate-CUT&Tag method on @protocolsio.bsky.social to accompany our recent preprint (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...) give it a try! Feedback welcome! dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.n2bvjed5wgk5/v1

Plate CUT&Tag (Meers Lab version)

This protocol describes a method for carrying out CUT&Tag-Direct in 96 well microplates for high-throughput processing of samples by a single operator with only standard lab...

dx.doi.org

2 13 29

Reposted by Gal Ofir

Carole Duchene @caroleduchene.bsky.social · 14d

Excited to share our new preprint on giant virus infection in brown algae: Latent endogenous viral elements drive active infection and inheritance in a multicellular host
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Latent endogenous viral elements drive active infection and inheritance in a multicellular host

Endogenous viral elements (EVEs) inserted in host genomes are often regarded as inert relics of past infections. Whether they can retain infective potential and contribute to active viral cycles has r...

doi.org

4 9

Reposted by Gal Ofir

Isabelle Fudal @ifudal.bsky.social · 14d

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/...

7 9