1/ ✨ New preprint alert ✨

It is my pleasure to share:
"Stepwise evolution of the developmental and symbiotic functions of DELLA in land plants"

Here we investigated the role of the single GRAS transcription factor DELLA in #MyMarchantia

doi.org/10.64898/202...

#PlantScience
A thread...

Research highlight by @natplants.nature.com on our study at @lrsv-toulouse.bsky.social :
Fungi genes to fight fungi !
⏬️

Congratulations to Sonomi Yamaguchi for her paper at @nature.com. Sonomi discovered Clover defense and explained how nucleotide signals control each step of viral sensing, immune regulation, and viral restriction – named for her beautiful "four-leaf" structures 🍀

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

Benthamiana rhapsody 🎶 🌱

How benthi is the go-to system for cracking the activation mechanism of an Arabidopsis TIR-NLR immune receptor— that’s the rhapsody.

Congrats He Zhao and Selvaraj for this wonderful collaboration 👇🏼 doi.org/10.64898/202...

CPK28 was already present in the first land plant, and presents a paradox: the Marchantia version can perfectly replace the Arabidopsis version for immunity, but does not seem to participate to immunity in Marchantia ...

A lot more molecular data here =>
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

1/9 Our latest paper on immunity mechanisms in Marchantia just out @pnas.org ! 🔽

Close collaboration between our former PhD students @karimaelm.bsky.social and @chloe-beaulieu.bsky.social !

and the old gard @jacquet-chris.bsky.social @maximebonhomme.bsky.social

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Congratulations Sylvain and @nemopeeters.bsky.social !

📢 2 PhD Positions Available in Plant Immune Receptor Bioengineering at Imperial College London
🌱 Start: Oct 2026
📅 Deadline: 10 Feb 2026
🇬🇧 UK/settled status only
💰 Fully funded (48 months)
ℹ️ Info: shorturl.at/po61I
#PlantImmunity #PlantPathology #SyntheticBiology
🙏 Share with interested candidates!

VACANCY - We're looking for a Postdoctoral Researcher to join the @philcarella.bsky.social Group, working in the field of Evo-MPMI (Evolutionary Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions).

okt.to/yIlgTU

Closing date - 10 February 2026
Salary - £37,500 - £45,350
Contract - Full-time, 3 years

New paper led by @hannasusi.bsky.social shows biodiversity responses to carbon farming are highly context-dependent—varying by management, index and taxa 🌱🪱🐞🐦.

Abundance is the most sensitive early indicator for detecting biodiversity impacts!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We’re looking for a postdoc to investigate Pseudomonas viridiflava virulence across diverse plant lineages. The 3yr position will combine plant and microbial molecular biology to understand core processes of infection - email for more info & apply online @ www.jic.ac.uk/vacancies/po...

Pteridology (FERNS) with Dr. Fay-Wei Li — alie ward Fronds. Forest dwellers. Spores. Houseplants. Queer icons. We’ve got ferns. The charming and hilarious professor and author of “Ferns: Lessons in Survival from Earth’s Most Adaptable Plants,” Dr. Fay-...

WE GOT FERNS, folks.

I hope you like ferns. If you don’t, just listen and you will like ferns. 🌿🌿🌿

Dr. Li is hilarious and charming and you will love him. And ferns.

In conclusion: ferns.

www.alieward.com/ologies/pter...

Congratulations Juan Carlos!

A novel pathosystem between Aeschynomene evenia and Aphanomyces euteiches reveals new immune components in quantitative legume root-rot resistance. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01...

Systematic discovery of TIR-based immune signaling systems in bacteria Toll/interleukin-1 receptor (TIR) domains are important for immune signaling across humans, plants and bacteria. These domains were recently found to produce immune signaling molecules in plant immuni...

I’m happy to share our new preprint! We uncovered the full diversity of bacterial TIR-based antiviral immune signaling, massively expanded the known diversity of Thoeris systems, and revealed conservation of TIR-derived immune signals across the tree of life.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New preprint from our group led by @metalichen.bsky.social on the discovery of a Starship giant transposable element in the genome of a lichen-forming fungus.

PhD opportunity in our lab - deadline passes on Dec 2nd - don’t miss out!

🛑Exciting update from our work with @pierremarcdelaux.bsky.social team on the ericoid mycorrhizal symbiosis❗❗

🔥New results support a conserved three-gene module and master regulator for nutrient-responsive intracellular accommodation of fungal symbionts🤯

Check the nice thread below👇🏼
#plantscience

Sooo happy to see this preprint out 🍄☘️!

Congratulations @leocastanedo.bsky.social @katharinamel1.bsky.social et al. !

It has been a long journey, from developing ericoid-mycorrhizae in the lab (Leo) to the genetics in Marchantia (Katharina), and many other details (#teamwork)

Congratulations!

Humbly share our latest work led by @himanshuchhillar.bsky.social my phd student

And thanks to all collaborators Henk-jan @brunongou.bsky.social @jonathandgjones.bsky.social

merci Camille !

4\ We found a class of immune receptors enriched in ferns. According to the features you are looking at, they could be CC-NLRs, or potentially a new class of intracellular immune receptors. They remain to be characterized … (drop us a message if you are interested in doing that with us ⬇️) 4/4

3\ Ferns reproduce via alternance of gametophytes (💚 algae-looking tiny plants) and sporophyte (🌿dominant phase, the form we are most familiar with). For some pathogens, gametophytes are more resistant than their sporophyte. 3/4

2\ We tested many ferns with many filamentous microbes and report several pathosystems 2/4

Exploring fern pathosystems and immune receptors to bridge gaps in plant immunity - BMC Biology Land plants include angiosperms, gymnosperms, bryophytes, lycophytes, and ferns, each of which may deploy distinct strategies to resist pathogens. Here, we investigate fern-pathogen interactions by characterizing novel pathosystems and analyzing the diversity of fern immune receptors. A collection of fern species was inoculated with a diverse set of filamentous microbes, and disease symptoms were assessed. We further leveraged published genome mining tools to analyse the diversity of receptor-like kinases, receptor-like proteins (RLKs/RLPs) and nucleotide-binding and leucine-rich repeats (NLRs), along with key immune signalling components, in ferns. Our results reveal that ferns exhibit a range of responses to pathogens, including putative non-host resistance and more specific resistance mechanisms. Among ten ferns tested, Pteris vittata displays the broadest spectrum of pathogen compatibility. Genome mining indicates that ferns encode a diverse repertoire of putative immune receptors, antimicrobial peptides, and mediators of systemic acquired resistance. Ferns possess numerous RLKs/RLPs, resembling those required for cell-surface immunity in angiosperms. They also encode diverse NLRs, including sub-families lost in flowering plants. These findings provide insights into disease resistance evolution and open promising perspectives for crop protection strategies.

1\ bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
🌿🌿Our article on fern immunity has been peer-reviewed 🌿🌿
Thanks to @madeleinebaker.bsky.social @kellerjeanphd.bsky.social @maximebonhomme.bsky.social @pierremarcdelaux.bsky.social and @jacquet-chris.bsky.social

a quick thread 🧵 1/4

A first dive in fern x pathogen interaction! More to come!

Congratulations @baptistebio.bsky.social @jacquet-chris.bsky.social et al.!

Various ferns species inoculated with S. sclerotiorum.

Want to see ferns under attack and how they respond to pathogens? Check out our latest paper!
doi.org/10.1186/s129...
Congrats on this huge team effort to @baptistebio.bsky.social @madeleinebaker.bsky.social @kellerjeanphd.bsky.social @maximebonhomme.bsky.social @pierremarcdelaux.bsky.social

~12 years after we coined it EPP1 with @oswaldovaldesl.bsky.social one afternoon when we were postdoc with @jeanmichelane.bsky.social!

Congrats @melaniekrich.bsky.social @tatiana-vernie.bsky.social et al. for the hard work!

EPP1 is the fourth member of the Common Symbiosis Pathway 🍄🌱!

EPP1 is an ancestral component of the plant Common Symbiosis Pathway The success of plants on land has been enabled by mutualistic intracellular associations with microbes for 450 million years ([Delaux and Schornack 2021][1]). Because of their intracellular nature, th...

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
and
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Two papers to tell us more about mysterious EPP1, a protein required for symbiosis. Well done @tatiana-vernie.bsky.social and all co-authors.