I'll be presenting Wed 17th 11:30 at IMMM2025 in Munich in our labs work on the role of the D14L-SMAX1 module in the arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis, and why we think it operates in two distinct roles (regulating the common symbiosis pathway and independent of it in the cortex). #immm2025

I'll be presenting Wed 17th 11:30 at IMMM2025 in Munich in our labs work on the role of the D14L-SMAX1 module in the arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis, and why we think it operates in two distinct roles (regulating the common symbiosis pathway and independent of it in the cortex). #immm2025

Spirit of chlorea defeated with bottled water and improved hydraulic infrastructure

Alien infiltrator (Rhizophagus irregularis in rice lateral root, 3d reconstruction)

Actually poster 101 😅 Hope to see you all tomorrow

1/🚨 New preprint alert! Can mutualists and pathogens co-colonise the same living plant cell and what does that do to the plant membranes that surround these microbes?

I'll be at @ipgsa2025.bsky.social in 10 days time - come find me at poster 102 to discuss what we've learned in rice about the role of KL & its negative regulator SMAX1 in root development, mycorrhizal symbiosis and germination, as well as our efforts to take chemical control of this pathway.

Some more #mycorrhiza #microscopy Rhizophagus irregularis inside a rice lateral root (plant & fungal CWs stained with calcofluor white, 400x mag)

Sharing some of my own #mycorrhiza #microscopy from @paszkowskilab.bsky.social Rhizophagus irregularis inside a rice lateral root (plant & fungal CWs stained with calcofluor white, 400x mag)

💥🥳 At long last, our latest paper is out! Gag proteins of endogenous retroviruses are required for zebrafish development www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Led heroically by Sylvia Chang & @jonowells.bsky.social A study which has changed the way I think of #transposons! No less! 🧵 1/n

In sum, at least three different vertebrate TEs encode Gag proteins required for embryonic development! How did we get there? We propose a TE ADDICTION model: TE products (eg Gag) are redundant with & progressively displace essential host proteins establishing dependence on TE for development.

Came across a strange website that appears to be some sort of LLM generated scam product for weed growers. Interesting to see that while the LLM has hallucinated all the citations it does get the right volume for the publication year. www.growwithgrease.com/blogs/news/f...

Figure 1. Custom Micro-Roses, engineered in Arabidopsis thaliana 🌹 Top: Visible light, Bottom: Fluorescence (a) White: no pigment (b) Magenta: betalains (c) Pink champagne: betalains + betaxanthins (d) Champagne: betaxanthins

Jurassic Research Park ⁦‪@NorwichResearch‬⁩ 🦖

Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄 Roots are busy places... here's a rice root packed with mycorrhizal fungal arbuscules 🔬

Some auxin-related reading for the week-end: ARFs are degraded, too. - "Comparative mutant analyses reveal a novel mechanism of ARF regulation in land plants" rdcu.be/ehnOT - "ARF degradation defines a deeply conserved step in auxin response" rdcu.be/ehnPa #PlantScience

Proud to present the first data paper from the lab, published today in @pnas.org. We describe a new mechanism for CLE peptides as local symbiosis-amplifying signals, promoting plant interactions with beneficial arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Congratulations @sagarbashyal.bsky.social et al.!

I'm a scientist working on understanding and manipulating the interactions between plant roots and beneficial microbes, with an interest in plant hormones and synthetic biology. Check out my publications: orcid.org/my-orcid?orc...

Rice lateral root filling with growing Rhizophagus irregularis arbuscules (fungal cell wall stained with trypan blue)