Preprint: Plant pathogens cleave 2’cADPR to suppress TIR immune signaling Inspired by knowledge on how phages inhibit bacterial immunity, we now show that disease-causing bacteria inhibit plant immunity in a similar way. A 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

How do pathogens disarm plant immunity? We discovered a widespread strategy used by plant bacterial pathogens: they directly cleave a conserved immune signaling molecule produced by plant immune receptors. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

How do human cells defend against viruses? @sgfern.bsky.social discovers that human immune proteins named ISGs target ancient features of replication shared between animal and bacterial viruses – opening analysis of human immunity to the power of bacterial genetics www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

TIRs are key regulators of plant immunity, but the role of conserved TIR-only proteins has remained unclear. Here, we compare TIR-only proteins from Arabidopsis and barley and show that they share a conserved role in plant immunity. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Excited to see our work out in @natmicrobiol.nature.com! We uncovered broad functional diversity within phage sponge families🧽. Huge thanks to all coauthors and brilliant collaborators @kranzuschlab.bsky.social @reneechang.bsky.social ! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our aRES story is finally out 😀 Beyond what was reported in the preprint, we found that aRES is activated by direct binding of the phage DNA polymerase. Another NAD-degrading defense system — and multiple phage strategies to overcome it. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🚨After 4 fantastic years in the Sorek lab @soreklab.bsky.social, I’ll be starting my own group at EMBL @embl.org bl.org Hamburg. www.embl.org/groups/oster... Metabolism-driven immunity: phages, metabolites, and discovery of new enzymes, molecules, and pathways 🦠🧬

A nice piece at @science.org covers the exploding field of bacterial immunity, and how it led to the understanding that components of the human immune system evolved from bacterial defenses against phage www.science.org/content/arti...

A single-cell screening platform accelerates functional genetics in plants - @sattelylab.bsky.social go.nature.com/4n8wzLv

Inspired by bacterial and plant immunity, Bohdana set out to identify catalytic activities in animal TIR proteins. She shows that TIR domain of human TLR4 is an enzyme that produces the signaling molecule cyclic ADP-ribose (cADPR). More in her thread and preprint, including on Viridiplantae TIRs.