New OA Article: "Membrane remodelling mediates lipopeptide-induced immunity in Arabidopsis" rdcu.be/feoNF

Lipid-driven mechanism for immune activation by a bacterial lipopeptide. Perception at the cell membrane leads to deformation, mechanosensing and early signalling. #PlantScience

Postdoctoral Scholar position in the Coaker group University of California, Davis We are seeking a Postdoctoral Scholar to join our research program focused on immune receptor engineering and spatial analyses of plant pathogens interactions using computational and imaging approaches. The position will involve integration of molecular, imaging, and computational approaches. Relevant publications from the laboratory include Nature Plants (2025, PMID: 40721669), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024, PMID: 38814867), and Cell Reports (2023, PMID: 37342910). https://www.coakerlab.org/ Qualifications: • Ph.D. in plant biology, molecular biology, genetics, computational biology, or a related field • Strong background in genomics and/or computational biology • First author publications in peer-reviewed journals • Ability to work both independently and collaboratively in a multidisciplinary environment • Experience in plant innate immunity is preferred Application Instructions: The position is initially available for two years, with the possibility of extension based on performance and funding. Salary is based on the University of California postdoctoral salary scale (https://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/2025-26/represented-oct-2025-scales/t23.pdf). The salary range for this position is $69,073-$82,836 US Dollars/year. Review of applications will begin June 1, 2026 and will continue until the position is filled. Please submit a CV, a brief statement of research interests (~1 page), and contact information for three references to glcoaker@ucdavis.edu. The research statement should describe your previous work, how your expertise aligns with ongoing research in the lab, and potential future research directions.

We are hiring! We’re excited to recruit a postdoc to our lab at UC Davis to work on plant immune engineering and single-cell analyses of plant pathogen interactions. Apply by June 1. Please repost. www.coakerlab.org/postdoctoral...

Join us to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Fungal Cell and Molecular Biology Gordon Conference #GRC26

Oral presentations will be selected from abstracts. Limited places available.
GRS 👉🏽 shorturl.at/vRdwY
GRC 👉🏽 shorturl.at/pjhg0

#Researchexplained
@avikkumarpal.bsky.social and team from @shivaprasadpv.bsky.social's lab reveal a hidden regulatory layer in rice seed tissue: when a gene-silencing machinery fails, certain gene expression goes off track, affecting grain development and quality

🔗 bit.ly/40tKCRi
🖋️ Christeen

Distinct development-associated roles of rice histonevariant H2A.X in suppressing deposition of activeH3K4me3 marks and in restricting H2A.W incorporation www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02...

Loss of function of chromatin remodeler OsCLSY4 leads to RdDM-mediated mis-expression of endosperm-specific genes affecting grain qualities Author summary The endosperm performs a unique physiological function similar to that of mammalian placenta, providing nourishment to the developing plant embryo and acting as a signaling hub. This ti...

#LatestStudy led by @avikkumarpal.bsky.social from Prof.@shivaprasadpv.bsky.social's lab highlights the critical role of OsCLSY4 in seed development and provides a foundation for engineering improved grain traits in rice.
journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

@ncbsbangalore.bsky.social @tifr.res.in

Very nice work!

@hanhtkvu.bsky.social @embl.org & we are looking for a #postdoc to study #regeneration x #autophagy across kingdoms of life. Pls spread the word & get in touch if you are interested www.health-life-sciences.de/opportunitie...

New Article: "MIRO1-mediated mitochondrial fusion is required for stomatal immunity in Arabidopsis" rdcu.be/e2vq2

Phosphorylation of the mitochondrial protein MIRO1 promotes mitochondrial fusion and energy metabolism, enabling effective stomatal defence.

Recruitment of SERK co-receptors determines signaling specificity within the systemin peptide family www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02...

Please share!
PhD position (4 years) available in my group @zmbp-tuebingen.bsky.social. We look for candidates with solid aptitude in computer science to cross disciplines and use cutting edge imaging to understand host infection by destructive plant pathogens.
uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...

Highly recommended!

Our new article is now online on @natplants.nature.com! ✨
We identified and characterised AvrPm4 and SvrPm4, a pair of powdery mildew effectors controlling avirulence on the wheat kinase fusion resistance protein Pm4 🌾 check it out ➡️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A new twist on the apoplastic interactions taking place between Phytophthora infestans and tomato 🍅

Kudos Jie Huang @jieoxford et al. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Targeting of the barley cell-surface receptor SRF3 by the Blumeria hordei effector AVRA13 overlaps with AVRA13 recognition by MLA and the induction of NLR-mediated cell death. Pathogens secrete effector proteins to promote virulence. Despite their recognition by barley Mla resistance genes, the structurally-related Blumeria hordei ( Bh ) AVRA effectors are maintained in the...

Wei Shi @wshisky.bsky.social & Merle‘s work is online. Wei really pushed this work from scratch and Merle linked it to MLA diversification…3rd (co-)first author paper in her PhD. Very proud PI!
And only possible through collaboration with G. Döhlemann, @grandpahiro.bsky.social &, Matt Platre. (1/x)

Danger‐associated peptide modulates iron deficiency signaling and root growth in Arabidopsis Iron (Fe) is an essential micronutrient for plants and humans, with plants being a primary dietary Fe source. Fe availability significantly affects plant health, development, and yield. Its deficien...

Happy to share that our new study is now published online in @newphyt.bsky.social
We showed dat the PEP2–PEPR2 signaling module plays a key role in Fe-deficiency responses and root growth in Arabidopsis.
doi.org/10.1111/nph....

This is very cool work! Congratulations @delaconcepcionjc.bsky.social @plantophagy.bsky.social

Electrostatic changes enabled the diversification of an exocyst subunit via protein complex escape - Nature Plants The evolutionary diversification of an exocyst subunit was enabled by electrostatic shifts leading to its dissociation from the ancestral complex.

My main work as postdoc @plantophagy.bsky.social lab in @gmivienna.bsky.social is out in @natplants.nature.com 🌱🎉

We asked how can protein complexes diversify without compromising their function and explored this question using the plant #exocyst complex.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This Halloween, we have a spooky evolutionary story for you.
The brainchild of @delaconcepcionjc.bsky.social, Nick Irwin and our fantastic collaborators is now out in @natplants.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Here’s why I love this work — and why I think you’ll enjoy it too. 👇

By the @cellsensing.bsky.social and Zipfel labs: The plant receptor kinase HSL3 senses a cyclic, disulfide-bond stabilized peptide phytocytokine. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

OsWRKY53 dictates wound responses in rice through fine‐tuning crosstalk between PEP and PSK‐mediated signalling Wound response in plants is a dynamic event involving a significant transcriptional reprogramming. Monocots display distinct phenotypes upon wounding, and the molecular mechanism involved in early si...

#LatestPublication
@harshithcy.bsky.social from @shivaprasadpv.bsky.social's lab identified the role of transcription factor OsWRKY53 that dictates wound responses in rice. It fine-tunes wound responses by turning on defence-related genes while turning down growth-related ones.
bit.ly/4ojkJgT

Fig. 3.PR1 protein features and alignment. (A) Representation of the tomato PR1 protein domains and conserved features. SP, signal peptide; CAP, cysteine-rich secretory proteins, antigen 5, and pathogenesis-related 1 protein domain, highlighting CAP3, CAP4, CAP1, CAP2, and CBM motifs; CAPE, CAP-derived peptide (Han et al., 2023). (B) Alignment of the representative PR1 proteins across different plant species. Amino acid alignment generated from ClustalO alignment of the representative PR1 proteins from tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), potato (Solanum tuberosum), pepper (Capsicum anuum), tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum), Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), and wheat (Triticum aestivum). Red and blue highlighted regions show the last amino acid before the putative CAPE peptide cleavage. The conserved CAPE peptide sequence is shown in red.

🍅🌱 SPECIAL ISSUE RESEARCH 🌱🍅

Resistance against bacterial wilt in tomato is linked to variety-specific proteomic changes; the CAPE1 peptide restricts Ralstonia solancearum growth in planta - Zhang et al. 🦠🍅

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...

#PlantScience 🧪 @bactodeath.bsky.social

Fig. 1.Four classes of roles of immune proteases illustrated via examples. (i) Pathogen perception: Required for Cladosporium Resistance-3 (Rcr3) protease is inhibited by the fungal avirulence effector Avr2. The Rcr3-Avr2 complex is recognized by the immune receptor Cf-2, triggering a defence response (Kruger et al, 2002). (ii) Regulation of the immune response: METACASPASE 4 (MC4) is activated by calcium upon wounding or pathogen attack. MC4 cleaves tonoplast-located ProPEP1 releasing PEP1 to the apoplast where it is perceived by PEP RECEPTORS (PEPRs) thereby initiating defence responses (Hander et al, 2019). (iii) Counteracting pathogen effectors: soybean aspartic protease GmAP5, degrades the Phytophthora sojae virulence factor glycoside hydrolase family 12 (GH12) protein, XEG1 (Xia et al., 2020). (iv) Direct pathogen attack: secreted aspartic proteases (SAPs) cleave Pseudomonas syringae MucD protein thereby suppressing bacterial growth (Wang et al., 2019).

💡 SPECIAL ISSUE VIEWPOINT 💡

Immune proteases are promising targets for protein engineering 🛠️ to boost disease resistance in plants 🌾 - Schuster et al.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...

#PlantScience 🧪 @marischuster.bsky.social @aciattoni.bsky.social

🧬 How have tiny immune-signaling peptides evolved across the plant kingdom?

Comparative analysis of small secreted peptide signaling during defense response: insights from vascular and non-vascular plants https://bit.ly/4eAUnmZ

Plant-associated fungi co-opt ancient antimicrobials for host manipulation Evolutionary histories of effector proteins secreted by fungal pathogens to mediate plant colonization remain largely elusive. While most functionally characterized effectors modulate plant immunity, ...

📣 NEW PREPRINT 📝

We identified evolutionary origins of many fungal effectors!
We show that fungi secrete lots of antimicrobial proteins, and that some of them were repurposed by plant pathogens for host immune suppression.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

cc @teamthomma.bsky.social

Ancestral P-body proteins rewired for autophagic recycling in the early land plant Marchantia polymorpha Processing bodies (P-bodies) are conserved ribonucleoprotein (RNP) granules central to RNA metabolism across eukaryotes. Although the mechanisms underlying their assembly are well understood, the path...

If you’re enjoying some calm while others are on holiday, here’s a #NEW #preprint to dive into — led by the brilliant @vbcscitraining.bsky.social student A. Abdrakhmanov:
👇 A quick thread + link:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Unlocking expanded flagellin perception through rational receptor engineering - Nature Plants Receptor kinase FLS2 detects the flg22 epitope of bacterial flagellin. Here the authors identify key residues on FLS2’s concave surface that enable expanded perception of flg22 variants, allowing the ...

Excited this paper is finally published! We focused on the inner concave surface of LRR RKs to expand bacterial flagellin perception in plants. Selection indicates expanded perception is more common than previously thought. Experiments led by @jerrytli.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Very nice work and enjoyable read! Congratulations to the team 👏

Uncertainty in the timing of diversification of flowering plants rests with equivocal interpretation of their fossil record royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Bacteria that possess a type VI secretion system (T6SS) inject toxins directly into neighboring cells that may be competing for local resources. Toxins break down the cell wall of susceptible cells, causing the release of nutrients that the attacking bacteria can consume for growth and proliferation. However, this can cause spatial segregation of the bacterial cell population, restricting attacks to the boundaries of predator cell groups and prey cell groups. This might limit the number of cells that can leverage the T6SS system for predation.

Bacteria leverage a secretion system to kill and scavenge nutrients from nearby competitors.

Learn more in a new #SciencePerspective: scim.ag/44y3iC6