Model of resistance transition in Brassicaceae.
The non-NLR gene JAX1 drives potexvirus nonhost resistance across the Brassicaceae
Suzuki et al.
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
My colleague & I teamed up w/ Grounded AI to look for fake/hallucinated references. Our analysis suggests that at least tens of thousands of publications from 2025 likely contain such references. More detz at @nature.com, w/ input from @gcabanac.cpesr.fr, @mhmdhsini.bsky.social & @kowb.bsky.social.
Preprint alert!
I am extremely happy to finally (!) share our work on the redox-dependent regulation of the CRKs in plants!
We integrated high-throughput interactomics, redox proteomics, structural modelling, and genetics to map a ROS-dependent CRK interaction landscape in Arabidopsis.
New #preprint 😍‼️ led by 2 incredible postdocs @ninizhani.bsky.social & Ranj Papareddy: transforming #UFMylation from a local ribosome rescue pathway to systems level regulator of mRNA splicing www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... A short 🧵
With Eugene Koonin, we propose a concept of “the selfish ribosome”, under which evolution of life is viewed as a ribosomal takeover, where the ribosome evolved to consume most of the cell’s resources, while other cellular componentry ensures the propagation of the ribosome. arxiv.org/abs/2602.23268
Ever felt constrained by the "4-color limit" in fluorescence imaging?
We use DNA-barcoded labeling to build high-plex panels, enabling imaging of 15 targets across the full fluorescence spectrum.
doi.org/10.64898/202...
Grateful to @sinemsaka.bsky.social and all authors for making this possible.
This is why we love #CalciumSignaling
Look how mechanical damage triggers long range Ca2+ waves in this plant !!
By @annalisabellandi.bsky.social, who is now around here ;)
Full www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @science.org #microscopy #cell #mechanobiology 🧪🔬
The Virus Diseases of Plants Working Group of the Deutsche Phytomedizinische Gesellschaft e.V. (DPG) met to discuss “New innovations & techniques in plant virology”.
Co-organised by @jki-research.bsky.social and DSMZ, there were featured talks, posters, and lively exchanges. 🌿
#PlantHealth
📷 DSMZ
1/11 🔥 New preprint alert 🔥
We wanted to know what plants in the wild really care about. So we asked them 🎤.
Here is what we learned: “Biotic-response networks are an important organizer of the transcriptome in wild Arabidopsis thaliana populations”
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
A new mechanism for “RNA memory”! This time in Planaria! (Here's a video of a Planarian with mulitple heads, one of the heritable phenotypes we studied).
This work summarizes >10 years of research and is an amazing collaboration with the labs of Jochen Rink and Omri Wurtzel labs. Read thrad below👇
Phylogeny of the 284 species of plants included in Conservatory data set. Conservatory uncovered ~2.3 million conserved non-coding DNA sequences across 284 plant species from 72 families including eudicots, monocots, gymnosperms, and algae. Illustrations by Professor Madelaine Bartlett.
Hiding in plain sight! 2.3M conserved non-coding sequences traced back 300M years across 284 plant species
Ground-breaking study out in First Release @science.org from labs of @madelaineb.bsky.social, @idane.bsky.social & Zach Lippman
▶️ doi.org/10.1126/scie...
▶️ www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/news/hiding-...
Don’t use LLMs to review manuscripts if you’ve agreed to review them….
Two men stand side by side indoors, smiling at the camera in bright sunlight coming through large windows.
Yesterday we had the pleasure of welcoming @thorstenlangner.bsky.social from @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social for a fascinating talk about #plantpathogen #coevolution and pathogen-informed disease control🌱🦠
Thank you for the inspiring visit and many thanks to @incavirus.bsky.social for hosting!
RNA splicing generates a functionally specialized Rep protein isoform in geminiviruses — enabling timely control of the viral cycle. Strikingly, similar strategies might have evolved in DNA viruses infecting different kingdoms: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Spearheaded by @delphinem-p.bsky.social!
Please share!
My group at @zmbp-tuebingen.bsky.social is offering a post-doctoral position (4 years). We look for a structural biologist with experience in Cryo-EM/Cryo-ET to investigate the mechanisms of host invasion by pathogenic fungi. Deadline February 28th!
uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...
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...
New OA Article: "Long-distance transport of siRNAs with functional roles in pollen development" rdcu.be/e1pxk
...These mobile small RNAs support proper pollen development, revealing that non-cell-autonomous small RNAs are crucial for successful plant reproduction.
Ziv Spiegelmann (left) and Marco Incarbone (right) standing outside near an office building in snowy weather. They are both smiling in the camera.
Thanks a lot to @zivirus.bsky.social visiting us from @volcaniinstitute.bsky.social to talk about the #tobamovirus revealing a crossroad between viral movement and #PlantImmunity 🍅🦠
Thanks as well to @incavirus.bsky.social for hosting! 🙏
Uppsala in late autumn
Join us at the Evolutionary Biology Centre at Uppsala University. We’re searching for an Assistant Professor in Biology. www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...
Fig. 1.Current expansion microscopy (ExM) methods in plant systems and other potential applications. Figure shows a schematic diagram of digested, permeabilized, expanded plant organelles, cells, or tissues embedded in a hydrogel in the center. Left panel showcases ExM techniques successfully applied in plant systems. These include chloroplast and nuclei (isolated organelles), Chlamydomonas, tobacco BY-2 cells, protoplasts, Arabidopsis seed embryos, and Arabidopsis roots. Right panel outlines other potential applications of ExM in other areas of plant biology including developmental biology, plant-microbe interactions, and spatial and single-cell biology. Created in BioRender. Cox, K. (2025) https://BioRender.com/ok72cvy.
🔬 EXPERT VIEW 🔬
In this review, Cox & Czymmek cover the recent developments of expansion microscopy techniques in plant systems and provides examples of their applications in plant biology research.
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...
#PlantScience 🧪 @kcox-bioguy.bsky.social
Defence-mediated phloem restriction of a plant virus facilitates insect transmission
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Winter forest scene with snow-covered trees and a small stream, sunlight shining through the trees. The image includes the text “Happy Holidays!” and the logo of Umeå Plant Science Centre, with logos of Umeå University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) at the bottom.
🎄✨ Season’s greetings from UPSC!
Looking ahead to the new year - are you an early career plant scientist interested in new research ideas and collaborations?
🌾Apply for the UPSC Early Career Symposium, April 2026!🧪
🗓 Deadline: 11 January 2026
👉 www.upsc.se/early-career...
Poster announcing the 3rd Early Career Plant Researchers Network Meeting, held 20–21 April 2026 in Halle (Saale), Germany. The event targets experienced PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in plant science and features scientific talks, career development and grant-writing workshops, and networking. Travel and accommodation are covered, and participants are registered for the 11th Leibniz Plant Biochemistry Symposium (22–24 April 2026). Application deadline: 23 January 2026. Website: plant-ecr-networking.eu.
Are you an experienced PhD student or postdoc in plant science looking to connect, present your work, and discuss career paths?
Join us at the 3rd Early Career Plant Researchers Network Meeting, Halle (Saale), 20–21 April 2026
Deadline: 23 January 2026
plant-ecr-networking.eu
Thank you @scienceslam.de for this wonderful night in Hamburg! 👩🔬🎤
I had a blast, learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed slamming about vertical transmission of plant viruses 🦠💚
Organelles do NOT have a single uniform pH.
And if you think they must, because “protons diffuse fast,” this paper is for you.
A thread on why that assumption is wrong; and what we found instead. 🧵 1/n
The Clavel Group is recruiting a new postdoc for two possible projects dealing with plant-virus interactions and selective autophagy! More (wordy) details below ⬇️🌱🦠
🧪🌱 Sooo… our paper on how SPOROCYTELESS/NOZZLE controls the onset of megasporogenesis is finally out in @natcomms.nature.com 🎉🎉! This is one of the major projects of my postdoc at #LuciaColombo’s lab at #UniMI. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧶 1/7
An embryo-derived peptide signal directs endosperm polarity in Arabidopsis www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12...
Fig. 5 (shortened, full legend in paper): Development of a simplified approach for on-site Cas13a-based diagnostics. (A) Cas13a-mediated detection of tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) in serial dilutions of crude RNA samples from ToBRFV-infected plants diluted in RNA from healthy plants. Viral RNA can be detected in a 1:5 dilution using this method. (B) Equipment required for on-site diagnostics includes dry bath, vortex, portable fluorescence viewer, a pipette, and test tubes. (C) Schematic illustration of virus detection using a portable fluorescence viewer and a cellular phone camera. (D) Mobile phone camera image of serial dilutions of crude RNA from ToBRFV-infected plants. (E) Samples are converted to grayscale. (F) Fluorescence intensity is quantified using ImageJ.
🧬 TECHNICAL INNOVATION 🧬
CRISPR/Cas technology is an emerging tool for identifying nucleic acid sequences.
Hak et al. present a user-friendly, extraction-free, rapid protocol for specific on-site detection of plant viruses using CRISPR/Cas13a.
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...
#PlantScience 🧪
Have you ever wondered how it is possible that systemically infected plants produce (a certain percentage of) healthy progeny? 💚
Check out the first preprint of the @incavirus.bsky.social lab and first preprint of my postdoc! 🍀
We'd be very happy about feedback and discussions!
