I had intended to post something about this new Google DeepMind paper that appeared yesterday in Nature, but the press coverage has added to what there is to say. So this is a long 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

FoldMason is out now in @science.org. It generates accurate multiple structure alignments for thousands of protein structures in seconds. Great work by Cameron L. M. Gilchrist and @milot.bsky.social. 📄 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🌐 search.foldseek.com/foldmason 💾 github.com/steineggerla...

Elucidation of gene clusters underlying withanolide biosynthesis in ashwagandha through yeast metabolic engineering www.nature.com/articles/s41... @natplants.nature.com

Exclusive: These bee-hunting beetles are the first animals known to fake the smell of flowers, according to a new study. https://scim.ag/49Bf8ho

The centuries old mystery of how tobacco plants make nicotine has a sweet solution: an additional glucose group is vital for the key pathway steps. Read more in our pre-print: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6.... Incredible work from @benschwabe.bsky.social and collaborators in York and Copenhagen.

plantiSMASH 2.0: improvements to detection, annotation, and prioritization of plant biosynthetic gene clusters https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.28.683968v1

Excited to see our paper online! We combined scMS and scRNA-seq from the same plant cells 🌱 — a step toward true single-cell multi-omics in plants. Overview 👇

Very exciting to finally see our iridoid cyclase ICYC online @natplants.nature.com! A joined effort with Robin Buell’s lab with Josh Wood generating snRNA-seq, and my student Chloée Tymen performing the initial experiment. #natprod #PlantScience @mpi-ce.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Super excited to introduce our recent work published in @natprot.nature.com today. Here we introduce a step-by-step protocol for applying multiple data analysis workflows in GNPS2 for drug metabolism studies. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

HT SpaceM: A high-throughput and reproducible method for small-molecule single-cell metabolomics #Cell #MassSpec www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Here, the authors @oconnorlab.bsky.social @mpi-ce.bsky.social uncover the mechanism of epimerization behind uncommon 3R-containing alkaloids in Mitragyna speciosa (Kratom) and study their inclusion in downstream biosynthesis #PlantScience #natprod www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Withanolide #biosynthesis from nightshade plants decoded. Withanolide steroids are used as a basis for medications for centuries. Now published by a team around @frankelab.bsky.social + @puckerlab.bsky.social in @natcomms.nature.com (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-61686-1).

New Article: "High-temperature-induced FKF1 accumulation promotes flowering through the dispersion of GI and degradation of SVP" rdcu.be/evfAY GI forms an inactive nuclear condensate that is dispersed at high temperatures by FKF1 binding to GI’s disordered region.

Plant Science Research Weekly -- Artificial condensates can boost metabolic engineering (Plant Biotechnol. J.) @leesweetlove.bsky.social‬ @anyalb.bsky.social‬ (Summary by Ciara O’Brien @ciara_obrien.bsky.social) buff.ly/Y5wFnGv #PlantaePSRW

Lead author @matildeflorean.bsky.social‬ et al. from the @oconnorlab.bsky.social discover a "fake" enzyme in plants that enables the formation of free indole, a key molecule for defense & attracting pollinators. www.ice.mpg.de/496511/PR_Fl...

This is a must-read for everyone involved in metabolomics. Personally I love this article because I no longer have to write a long paragraph when I say 'please don't use pathway analysis' during peer review 🤣

Finally online and open access! This revised version has a slightly different title and contains a number of additional supplementary figures, mainly in vitro enzyme assays. Kept me quite busy in the lab at the end of last year! #PlantScience #natprod www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A new paper reports a plant chassis for high-yield isoflavonoid production, leading to the identification of six P450s that complete the 15-step biosynthesis of diverse glyceollins, which are critical compounds for plant defense www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to share my new Tansley Review @newphyt.bsky.social on emerging single-cell and spatial omics technologies, many of which are just beginning to be applied in plant biology! Big opportunities lie ahead for the field. [1/n]  nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Convergent evolution of "smelling like rotting meat" is mediated by a 3 amino-acid chance in a conserved enzymes, just out @science.org 🔽 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Our work on Taxol biosynthesis is now out at @natsynth.nature.com. You can read it here: www.nature.com/articles/s44...