Henry Janse van Rensburg
@henryjvr.bsky.social
180 followers 140 following 2 posts
Postdoc at the University of Basel. Fascinated by the interaction between plants and microbes. My research focus is on the genetic components of plants governing their interaction with microbes.
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Reposted by Henry Janse van Rensburg
kschlaeppi.bsky.social
updated preprint: Intriguingly, Arabidopsis responded with both, improved growth and enhanced defence to a maize-conditioned soil microbiome, and this dual microbiome feedbacks were mediated by priming of the defences. Credits to Katja Stengele et al.!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Benzoxazinoid-mediated microbiome feedbacks enhance Arabidopsis growth and defense
Plants modulate their surrounding microbiome via root exudates and this conditioned soil microbiome feeds back on the performance of the next generation of plants. How plants can perceive this altered...
www.biorxiv.org
Reposted by Henry Janse van Rensburg
barleymicrobreed.bsky.social
Happy to share that #Root2Res and #BarleyMicroBreed will jointly host the “Manipulating the rhizosphere with crop genetics” session at #Rhizosphere6. Root2Res and BarleyMucroBreed talks by Mette Vestergård (keynote), Menghui Dong, Lionel Dupuy and Tim George🌾🌞. www.rhizo6.org/scientific-p...
Rhizosphere 6 - Rooting for Earth - Scientific Programme
A fully interactive version of the conference programme is now available. Please use this to browse sessions and read abstracts in advance as well as to see where different sessions will be located an...
www.rhizo6.org
Reposted by Henry Janse van Rensburg
biorxiv-plants.bsky.social
Undermining the cry for help: The phytopathogenic fungus Verticillium dahliae secretes an antimicrobial effector protein to undermine host recruitment of antagonistic Pseudomonas bacteria https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.09.658588v1
henryjvr.bsky.social
Can't say for sure, but our transcriptome suggests that it activates plant immunity on the microbiome where mutants assemble a root community that differs from that of WT. Most likely maintaining microbiome homeostasis in accessions carrying the SNP...
henryjvr.bsky.social
Excited to share my postdoctoral work from Basel! We discovered a “microbiota receptor” in Arabidopsis that optimises plant immunity, the root microbiome composition, eventually leading to enhanced plant growth.
kschlaeppi.bsky.social
Preprint alert: Here we report MMF1 - "a microbiota receptor” - through which Arabidopsis plants perceive their soil microbiome. Perception optimises root microbiome composition, immune status and ultimately leads to better growth.

Happy reading...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A TNL receptor mediates microbiome feedbacks in Arabidopsis
Plant performance depends on the soil microbiome. While microbiome feedbacks are well documented, the mechanisms by which plants perceive and mediate these feedbacks remain unclear. We established a f...
www.biorxiv.org
Reposted by Henry Janse van Rensburg
frantecol.bsky.social
Science takes time - a lot of time. Time that is more and more difficult to make available because of increased workloads. Time that exceeds the temporary contracts of postdocs and PhDs.

I'll illustrate this using our paper published in Nature yesterday. 🧵 (1/x)
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Soil microbiomes show consistent and predictable responses to extreme events - Nature
Soils from 30 grasslands across Europe were subjected to 4 contrasting extreme climatic events under drought, flood, freezing and heat conditions, with the results suggesting that soil microbiomes fro...
www.nature.com