Save the date, 1-3 July 2026, for the XVIII Plant Molecular Biology Meeting #RBMP2026 in Bilbao. Check out the website for updates rbmp2026.com/RBMP/en/info

Out after peer review, collaborative study from Nordborg & Weigel labs with help from many others. Not the largest collection of new Arabidopsis thaliana genomes, but we hopefully put forward some good ideas for how to think about pangenomes and their analysis!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Like I mentioned last week I like it when plants find a way against all odds. It is not just the perseverance and adaption. But also, that we can learn something from how those pioneering plants manage to survive against all odds. 🧵1/3
🧪 #PlantScience

Congratulation to all authors!
(only @laskotillean.bsky.social in #bluesky?)

Institutions
@cbgpmadrid.bsky.social
@ijpb-versaillescly.bsky.social
@lipme-toulouse.bsky.social
@inrae-france.bsky.social
#GAFL
@csic.es

and funding agencies
@agencerecherche.bsky.social
@ageinves.bsky.social

Parallel evolution in this case could be indicative of positive selection to produce the metabolite in this environment.
Indeed, plants carrying different alleles of GH38cv present different accumulation of the metabolite, and germinate, grow and reproduce better under high salt concentrations.

Looking at genome sequences from a global set of Arabidopsis plants (~1600), only two populations have non-functional aleles of GH38cv, and both come from the Cape Verde archipelago, but each population comes from a different island!
This is a case of parallel evolution!

We performed metabolite QTL analysis in a plant population derived from Cape Verde Islands (Cvi-0) and central Europe (Col-0).
The strongest QTL is in an unidentified metabolite.
We characterize the metabolite as glucuronyl-mannose, and we map the gene to a glycoside hydrolase family 38 (GH38cv).

We just published our work in #ScienceAdvances

"Parallel evolution of salinity tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana accessions from Cape Verde Islands"

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

Short summary and credits follow:

Congratulation to all authors!
(only @laskotillean.bsky.social in #bluesky?)

Institutions
@cbgpmadrid.bsky.social
@ijpb-versaillescly.bsky.social
@lipme-toulouse.bsky.social
@inrae-france.bsky.social
#GAFL
@csic.es

and funding agencies
@agencerecherche.bsky.social
@ageinves.bsky.social

Parallel evolution in this case could be indicative of positive selection to produce the metabolite in this environment.
Indeed, plants carrying different alleles of GH38cv present different accumulation of the metabolite, and germinate, grow and reproduce better under high salt concentrations.

Looking at genome sequences from a global set of Arabidopsis plants (~1600), only two populations have non-functional aleles of GH38cv, and both come from the Cape Verde archipelago, but each population comes from a different island!
This is a case of parallel evolution!

We performed metabolite QTL analysis with plants from Cape Verde Islands (Cvi-0) and central Europe (Col-0).
The strongest QTL is in an unidentified metabolite.
We characterize the metabolite as glucuronyl-mannose, and we map the gene to a glycosyl hydrolase family 38 (GH38cv)

Our story about salinity tolerance in the Cape Verde islands is out in Science Advances! @science.org. Two independent mutations in the same gene conferred salt resistance to Arabidopsis plants!

Check it out here!

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

These were my very first experiments done at @cbgpmadrid.bsky.social. I still remember the excitement of @jimenezgomez.bsky.social and me when observing the plates and the shocking phenotype!
Thanks to all the authors for the work and so happy to continue working on this!

🧪Very timely, the paper from the story that @jimenezgomez.bsky.social explained us during #SEG2025 was published yesterday. Congrats to all the team and specially first co-author @laskotillean.bsky.social! Beautiful story! 🫶🏻

The quantitative effect of seed production triggers the end of flowering in tomato (María Jesús López-Martín , Cristina Ferrándiz , Concepción Gómez-Mena) doi.org/10.1093/plph... #PlantScience

Our work on MYBs and WRKY regulating suberin in tomato exodermis is now out in @jxbotany.bsky.social!

🍅 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...

👩‍🔬 @leonardojo.bsky.social @riannekluck.bsky.social @marianasartur.bsky.social Sara Buti, Alex Cantó-Pastor @bradylabs.bsky.social

🌱 #PlantScience

Twenty years ago this month Kevin Wright and I set out on an 18,000 mile journey from Durham, NC across North America to collect monkeyflowers. The seeds from that trip (my third rotation project) have given rise to major advances and scores of scientific publications over the past two decades.

Lots of #arabidopsis mixed with the #tulips in the #JardinBotanico in #Madrid. I asked the local expert Carlos Alonso-Blanco: they likely came from Holland with the bulbs or the soil 🤦🏻

Amazing resource for the Arabidopsis and plant community

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Lots of cool new features at the BAR ePlant Browser, such as ecotype SNP data mapped to protein sequence and structure. Check it out at: bar.utoronto.ca/eplant/
#PlantScience @bar-plantbio.bsky.social

Today’s weird potato flower is one that looks like fasiflora (fa) mutants in tomato, but as usual, nothing is known about this mutation in tuber bearing Solanum.

Pub with the fa mutant in tomato:
www.researchgate.net/profile/Beat...

Solanum galapagense (Galápagos tomato/“tomatillo”)
Isla Santiago, Galápagos

#ASPBPlantCellTuesday #InBrief #ICYMI