Felicidades @mpcontreras.bsky.social !!

Award announcement for Dr. Mauricio P. Contreras from University of Tübingen, Germany, receiving the Early Career Research Award at The Biochemical Society 2027 Awards.

As an emerging leader in plant innate immunity, we're thrilled to present Mauricio Contreras with a 2027 Early Career Research Award! Alongside advocating for Open Science and preprint review, Mauricio's "activation-and-release" and "NLR resurrection" models are already referenced worldwide.

🚨 Why can’t mammals regenerate limbs like frog tadpoles or salamanders?
In our new paper in @science.org , we show that species-specific oxygen sensing acts as a gatekeeper for initiating limb regeneration 🐭🐸
🔗 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #EvoDevo

PNAS: A secreted citrus protease cleaves an outer membrane protein of the Huanglongbing pathogen (2026) Plants secrete a variety of proteases as a defense response during infection by microbial pathogens. However, the relationship between their catalytic activities and antimicrobial functions remains largely unknown. Particularly, few biologically relevant substrates of these proteases have been identified. Huanglongbing (HLB) has been a major threat to the citrus industry worldwide. The HLB-associated bacterium, "Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus" (Las), was previously shown to deploy an inhibitor of papain-like cysteine proteases (PLCPs) to promote disease in citrus. In this study, we identified an outer membrane protein (OMP) of Las, LasOMP1, as a substrate of the citrus PLCP CsRD21a. LasOMP1 is one of the most highly expressed genes in Las. CsRD21a cleaves LasOMP1 and produces cleaved peptide products, which could be detected in vitro and in HLB-diseased citrus plants. We found that CsRD21a targets the N-terminal portion of LasOMP1, potentially at an extracellular loop region. Importantly, transgenic sweet orange overexpressing CsRD21a showed reduced Las populations and improved plant growth, highlighting that engineering this protease is a promising strategy to enhance HLB resistance in citrus. Together, our work reveals a pathogen-derived substrate of plant PLCPs and suggests bacterial OMPs may be direct targets of plant defense.

New Publication: A secreted citrus protease cleaves an outer membrane protein of the Huanglongbing pathogen (2026)

https://www.tsl.ac.uk/publications/166327

Great to see this paper in its final published form!

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

New preprint out! 🚀
biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

We mapped how septins organise infection in the rice blast fungus—and found they are far more dynamic than previously thought.

Thread 👇

#FungalPathogenesis #CellBiology #septins

A new study from our group, led by Iris Eisermann, of the septin interactome during appressorium development, revealing many new interactors and significantly widening the biological function of septins in fungal pathogenesis. 👇

@thesainsburylab.bsky.social

A stage-resolved map of dynamic septin interactions required for infection by the rice blast fungus www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04...

Excited to see our work out in Science today! Using machine learning to identify prokaryotic immune systems www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Now that it's official i've got some news! Our group has moved from @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social to @unihalle.bsky.social where I am now leading the department for phytopathology and plant protection 🍄🌾🧬

Kicking off now @APH_ISP @BBSRC @ukri.org Alternative Career Day.

Mark @mjbanfield introducing the exciting program—several of whom are #CelebratingAlumni @johninnescentre.bsky.social @thesainsburylab.bsky.social

We’re celebrating the Persian new year, based on the calendar developed in the 11th c by the renowned Persian mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyam 🪐

Happy new year and best wishes of peace and prosperity!

Fungal symbioses: A multiplicity of fungi in the lichen union Increasing evidence suggests that lichens are not just a partnership between one fungus and one alga or cyanobacterium but may contain multiple intera…

Thrilled to see this published! 😄
Our dispatch examines potential additional fungal symbionts in lichen partnerships and the key challenges in unraveling their biology.

Thanks for involving me in this @talbotlabtsl.bsky.social

@currentbiology.bsky.social

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

There is a week left to apply for two available positions in my lab @ipbhalle.bsky.social

- PhD: ipb-halle.mhm.jobs/12-phd-posit...

- Postdoc: ipb-halle.mhm.jobs/13-postdocto...
Earliest start date: 01/05/2026.

We are interested in plant immune receptor biochemistry and evolution. Please share!

Today’s @thesainsburylab.bsky.social MSc lecture focused on epigenetics (broadly defined), delivered by our chromatin aficionado, @vgeshkovski.bsky.social

Cell death is a fundamental mechanism of antiviral immunity across diverse organisms, including bacteria. As my final PhD project with @jbdsf.bsky.social, I was curious whether cell death is required for successful immunity with the ancient cGAS pathway known as ‘CBASS.’

Spoiler – the answer is no!

Pathogen-induced red pigmentation uncovers a conserved floral defense in Asteraceae www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02...

Really happy to see this one out: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Alibek's drive & great coll w/ friends @gekaragoz.bsky.social & E. Hallacli resulted in a cool story that starts with our beloved #Marchantia and ends with iPSC-derived neurons 🤩🤪 A short 🧵

Had a great time volunteering at the microbe zoo in #NorwichScienceFestival manning the soil tunnel and plant pathogen board. Last chance to give the exhibit a visit tomorrow!

Thanks @samfrowe.bsky.social for organising the volunteers.

@norwichmicro.bsky.social
@sawtrust.bsky.social

Fig. 1 Pik pairs as resources for determining optimal ‘chassis’ for engineering recognition.

Mismatch screening in Nicotiana benthamiana to explore Pik-1/Pik-2 paired NLR platforms for receptor engineering

A #Letter by Xi & Banfield
👇

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

#LatestIssue

Direct effector recognition by a tandem kinase triggers non-canonical immunity in wheat www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02...

AI Research Scientist | Protein-Protein Interactions Resurrect Bio

Following the successful completion of the Series A funding round, our plant disease resistance start-up Resurrect Bio @resurrectbio.bsky.social is hiring for its London lab:

(1/2) AI Research Scientist | Protein-Protein Interactions

jobs.recruit.charliehr.com/resurrect/ai...

Come visit us at the Norwich Science Festival today!

#norwichscifestival

@vgeshkovski.bsky.social @adelineharant.bsky.social

This one has been a long time in the making. So many contributions and years of hard work went into bringing this project to the finish line. I’m really happy to finally share our new story. Thanks to everyone involved, and a very special thanks to @teamthomma.bsky.social and @lfaino.bsky.social

Structural basis for the broad recognition specificity of an Arabidopsis immune receptor www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02...

Structural basis of canonical TIR-NLR activation in plant innate immunity www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02...

Postdoctoral position in biology (m/f/d) (2/2026) Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry (Halle) offers a Postdoctoral position in Biology

Please share! We are looking for a postdoctoral scientist (2 years, extension possible) starting from 01/05/2026 at
@ipbhalle.bsky.social! The project focuses on plant immune receptor biochemistry and structural biology.
Deadline 09/03/2026.

Apply at: ipb-halle.mhm.jobs/11-postdocto...

PhD position in biology (m/f/d) (1/2026) Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry (Halle) offers a PhD position in Biology

Please share! We are looking for a PhD student (4 years) starting from 01/05/2026 at @ipbhalle.bsky.social!
If you are interested in plant immunity, receptor biochemistry and evolution, consider applying! Deadline 09/03/2026.

Application portal: ipb-halle.mhm.jobs/10-phd-posit...

Fig. 2 (shortened, full legend in paper): Structurally characterized M. oryzae effectors in complex with the HMA or HMA-like domains of host target proteins and ID-NLRs. Crystal structures of (A) AVR-PikF with the HMA-like domain of OsHIPP19 from rice (7B1I) (Maidment et al., 2021); (B) APikL2A with the HMA-like domain of sHMA25 from foxtail millet (7NLJ) (Bentham et al., 2021); (C) Pwl2 with the HMA domain of OsHIPP43 from rice (8R7D) (Zdrzałek et al., 2024); (D) AVR-PikD with the HMA-like ID of Pikp-1 from rice (5A6W) (Maqbool et al., 2015); (E) AVR-Pia with the HMA-like ID of Pikp-1 (6Q76) (Varden et al., 2019); (F) AVR1-CO39 with the HMA-like ID of RGA5 from rice (5ZNG) (Guo et al., 2018). Complexes are displayed such that the HMA/HMA-like domains are in equivalent orientations. Domains from HPP/HIPP host targets are coloured light green. Domains from ID-NLRs are coloured dark green.

⚙️🦠 REVIEW 🦠⚙️

Turley & Faulkner explore the function of plant heavy metal-associated domain-containing proteins and speculate about their functions at plasmodesmata by drawing from plant–pathogen interaction studies.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...

#PlantScience 🧪 Christine Faulkner

Novel repressors of cambium activity in Arabidopsis www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01...