Plants use immunogenic peptides to coordinate immunity. Pathogens can mimic them to hijack defense. 🌱 We compare phytocytokines with animal cytokines and ask how these signals are made, released, mimicked, and controlled in space and time. doi.org/10.1111/tpj....

Delighted to see this work out in #ScienceAdvancesResearch @science.org where we uncover a surprising evolutionary origin of fungal effector proteins as ancient antimicrobials. Led by the super-star @mesny.bsky.social in the frame of @ceplas.bsky.social @mibinet.bsky.social & @madfungi.bsky.social

Where do plant pathogen effectors come from? @mesny.bsky.social shows how fungi turned shield 🛡️ into sword ⚔️ to end up with dual-function molecules to disrupt host immunity & protective host microbiota. @ceplas.bsky.social @mibinet.bsky.social @madfungi.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Thank you to @izzysaurlab.bsky.social, @teamthomma.bsky.social, and their teams for hosting our next two MadFungi workshops, "Expression in Barley Protoplasts" and "Expression of Antimicrobial Proteins," at @unicologne.bsky.social. It was a great week with all of our MadFungi PhD candidates! 🍄

So diverse and yet conserved. Check out opinion paper by Leonhard Pachinger @leopach.bsky.social on antimicrobial effectors produced by fungal pathogens: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

What enables a fungus to invade a mammal host? @marco-guerreiro.bsky.social unravels signatures of translation adaptation among pathogenic and non-pathogenic species of Trichosporonales. See more: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our PhD candidates are having a great time at the MadFungi transcriptomics workshop at the University of Kiel @uni-kiel.de. Special thanks to @estukenbrock.bsky.social and her team for the great organization!

Check this out👇 New from the Doehlemann lab! A fungal enzyme modulates plant-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions 🔥

The MadFungi🍄 research unit funded by @dfg.de kicked off this week with our meeting in Cologne @unicologne.bsky.social. We're excited to see what great science we'll achieve over the next four years.