New OA Article: "A novel cis-element enabled bacterial uptake by plant cells" rdcu.be/eXCLQ

Key step in evolution of N-fixing root nodule symbiosis: control of NIN expression by a complex that regulated transcription much earlier in the arbuscular mycorrhiza symbiosis.

Congratulations Tonni and Defeng!! I’m very happy for you. Thanks for including us!

Apoplastic barriers are essential for nodule formation and nitrogen fixation in Lotus japonicus Establishment of the apoplastic root barrier known as the Casparian strip occurs early in root development. In legumes, this area overlaps with nitrogen-fixing nodule formation, which raises the possi...

Finally!
Im so excited to present to culmination of many years of work from the fantastic Defeng Shen and some great collaborators. For details, I have made a digested thread below, but if you are more interested feel free to reach out (and read the paper of course).
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

At the same time, it’s important not to overlook other alternatives, such as root nodule symbiosis or engineering nitrogenase

Mucilage produced by aerial roots hosts diazotrophs that provide nitrogen in Sorghum bicolor Sorghum is an important crop worldwide that develops aerial roots and produces an abundant carbohydrate-rich mucilage after rain, similar to maize. This study shows that diazotrophs found in the aeria...

I’m excited to share this paper! There’s been a lot of debate around biological nitrogen fixation in cereals, and as scientists, we must continue refining this process. Thanks to @jeanmichelane.bsky.social and Wilfred Vermerris for their invaluable support.

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Aerial roots of sorghum releasing mucilage in a field. Photo by Jean-Michel Ané and Jennifer Wilker, captured during a field experiment at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s West Madison Agricultural Station.

#Sorghum develops aerial roots and (like maize) produces abundant carb-rich mucilage after rain. @rev7.bsky.social @jeanmichelane.bsky.social &co show that diazotrophic #bacteria in the aerial roots can fix nitrogen, reducing need for synthetic fertilizers 🧪 @plosbiology.org plos.io/3EYPZjK

It's not just PubMed. All NCBI services are down. This includes:

- RefSeq
- NCBI Gene Database
- NCBI BLAST Server
- NCBI Entrez

If this becomes permanent (or if servers slow down), this is a debilitating blow to genome and genomics research.