Nathan Williams
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njw33.bsky.social
Nathan Williams
@njw33.bsky.social
65 followers 110 following 1 posts
PhD Student at the John Innes Centre 🌱
Studying TKPs in the Banfield lab 🌾
Interested in plant immune receptors, pathogen effectors & protein design
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Nathan Williams
newphyt.bsky.social
Mismatch screening in Nicotiana benthamiana to explore Pik-1/Pik-2 paired NLR platforms for receptor engineering

Yuxuan Xi (席玉轩) and Mark J. Banfield

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#PlantScience
Pik pairs as resources for determining optimal ‘chassis’ for engineering recognition.
January 7, 2026 at 4:02 PM
Reposted by Nathan Williams
hynmn-jeong.bsky.social
I’m excited to share a new preprint from Carella group #CarellaCapybaras! biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
In this study, we show molecular co-evolution of two popular nonhost resistance genes in plants, RAR1 and SGT1, in ferns. For a quick read before Christmas, here’s the thread:
December 19, 2025 at 12:24 PM
Reposted by Nathan Williams
biorxiv-plants.bsky.social
Stepwise and lineage-specific divergence of a major immune co-chaperone complex in leptosporangiate ferns https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.17.694876v1
December 18, 2025 at 4:03 AM
njw33.bsky.social
Super excited to see this pre-print out from the lab! Happy to have helped to establish & carry out the protoplast cell death assays for this work. Congrats to @danielsyu.bsky.social and all other authors 🥳🌱
December 16, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Reposted by Nathan Williams
biorxiv-plants.bsky.social
Evolution of HMA-integrated tandem kinases accompanied by expansion of target pathogens https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.15.692859v1
December 16, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Reposted by Nathan Williams
Super-happy sharing my Lab's new work on engineering plant HMA-containing tandem kinase immune receptors. Congrats to all authors (@danielsyu.bsky.social and @njw33.bsky.social on here). Work only possible in collaboration with Soichiro Asuke. See linked paper to follow!
bsky.app/profile/bior...
biorxiv-plants.bsky.social bioRxiv Plant Bio @biorxiv-plants.bsky.social · 24d
Engineering plant tandem kinase immune receptors expands effector recognition profiles https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.15.694194v1
December 16, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Reposted by Nathan Williams
danielsyu.bsky.social
Excited to share our #plantimmunity preprint on engineering cereal TKPs
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
A short thread below 👇
Engineering plant tandem kinase immune receptors expands effector recognition profiles
Plant intracellular immune receptors are widely deployed in breeding to protect crops from disease. In addition to nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat receptors (NLRs), tandem kinase proteins (TKPs...
www.biorxiv.org
December 16, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Reposted by Nathan Williams
biorxiv-plants.bsky.social
Engineering plant tandem kinase immune receptors expands effector recognition profiles https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.15.694194v1
December 16, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Reposted by Nathan Williams
atinygreencell.bsky.social
Benchling darkmode when
December 6, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Reposted by Nathan Williams
clemmar.bsky.social
Excited to share our latest work on plant immune receptor biochemistry! @kamounlab.bsky.social @hsuanpai.bsky.social @mpcontreras.bsky.social Jose Salguero Linares @danielluedke.bsky.social @adnroide.bsky.social @jiorgoskourelis.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
CC-NLRs exhibit diverse conformations in the resting state. Figure depicts different NLR resting and activated states. While ZAR1 exists as a monomer bound to its guardees in its resting state, several forms have been observed for the NRC2 helper, including dimers, tetramers, and filaments. While filament-like structures were observed via confocal microscopy for NRC2 upon overexpression in planta, these structures were not detected for its paralog NRC4, suggesting a potentially different resting state configuration for NRC4. Our work suggests that the Pik CC-NLR pair forms a hetero-complex bound to the plasma membrane in its resting state. How effector binding to the integrated domain (ID) of the Pik-1 sensor leads to the activation of the complex remains to be determined.
December 3, 2025 at 9:20 AM
Reposted by Nathan Williams
bitheolaidhe.bsky.social
Interactions between plant pathogens (left) and plants across five quadrats in a restored species-rich grassland. The basic premise of my PhD is to see if these interaction networks differ between restored and ancient grasslands.
#FungiFriends #NetworkEcology
November 19, 2025 at 11:15 PM
Reposted by Nathan Williams
pdchristine.bsky.social
New pre-print from the team!

The manuscript is @emma-raven.bsky.social's PhD work showing that whether a leaf is a carbon sink or a carbon source influences how they execute immune responses.

Have a read!

#PlantScience
@johninnescentre.bsky.social
biorxiv-plants.bsky.social bioRxiv Plant Bio @biorxiv-plants.bsky.social · Oct 14
Primary metabolism underpins the execution of immune responses in different tissues of the same plant https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.11.681807v1
October 14, 2025 at 7:16 AM
Reposted by Nathan Williams
effectomics.bsky.social
#2025ISMPMI Agnus Bucknell of the Talbot lab gives an exciting presentation to engineer fungal effectors recognizing immune sensors based on Pik1. Great and clear talk.
July 17, 2025 at 8:58 AM
Reposted by Nathan Williams
danielsyu.bsky.social
Super excited to be giving a talk at #2025ISMPMI today in the Synthetic biology concurrent session from 15:15 - 15:35! Come along if you’re interested in engineering Tandem Kinase Proteins
July 17, 2025 at 5:51 AM
Reposted by Nathan Williams
angusb.bsky.social
Big thanks to everyone who stopped by my poster today at #2025ISMPMI!

For those that missed it, you can check it out on Zenodo!

zenodo.org/records/1588...
Engineering new-to-nature immune sensors for novel recognition of Magnaporthe oryzae
Phytopathogenic fungi significantly impact global food security, causing up to 40% of annual crop yield losses worldwide. Alone, the blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae has a global economic impact of $66...
zenodo.org
July 14, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Reposted by Nathan Williams
joshwbennett.bsky.social
Excited to attend my 1st ISMPMI conference, and present our work on a paired wheat CNL/MLKL receptor mechanism! 🌾

Come chat to me at my poster on Tuesday, P-050! 📜

If you miss my poster session, I will be talking in: Crop resistance genetics and genomics on Wednesday - 16:25-16:35!
July 14, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Reposted by Nathan Williams
camplantsci.bsky.social
#NoCass2025 registration now open!

If you're a student or post-doc at Norwich or Cambridge, join us at the Norwich-Cambridge Science Symposium on 4-5 September - a great chance to share research & form collaborations.

Find out more & register: lnkd.in/eH3We78t

@nocassofficial.bsky.social
NoCass 4th to 5th September 2025 - registration now open!
June 4, 2025 at 10:58 AM
Reposted by Nathan Williams
gittacoaker.bsky.social
I'm very excited our most recent work on plant tandem kinases (TKPs) has finally been published! TKPs are a fascinating protein family conferring disease resistance to fungi. Originally in bioRxiv. Many thanks to @yichangsung.bsky.social for leading this work. 🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Wheat tandem kinase RWT4 directly binds a fungal effector to activate defense - Nature Genetics
This study shows that RWT4, a wheat tandem kinase, confers resistance to the fungal pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae by directly binding to the pathogen effector AvrPWT4 and activating host defense.
www.nature.com
April 15, 2025 at 4:36 AM
Reposted by Nathan Williams
tatsuyanobori.bsky.social
New year, new paper! Now published in @nature.com. We identified and characterised diverse immune cell states in plants under pathogen attack. My postdoc work in the Ecker lab at @salkinstitute.bsky.social. A thread (0/n)
#PlantScience
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
January 8, 2025 at 4:27 PM