As seen on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social: our story on how the dreaded late blight pathogen hijacks a helper NLR pathway is now out in its final form! 🎉 Meet AVRcap1b: the two-faced effector 🧵👇 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

So proud to see this story finally out!🎉 We added new data since our previous preprint—transgenic barley plants with an engineered immune receptor that fights off two fungal pathogens at once. Short 🧵 and link to the original preprint thread on X👇 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

We have an open PhD position in our Mol. Biochemistry of Plant-Microbe Interactions Lab Saurlab.com. Please see details below, share and consider applying. jobportal.uni-koeln.de/ausschreibun...

Many pathogens that infect wild plants are close relatives of crop pathogens. Important model systems for studying plant diseases. Check out the special issue on wild plant pathosystems published in the Philosophical Transactions B: royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/issue/3...

A very interesting read:

📢 EffectorGeneP is finally here! Stop missing small, single-exon or orphan genes from your favourite pathogen genome. Current tools only annotate 15%-78% of effector genes, EffectorGeneP finds 95% - including the large AvrSr26 family in stem rust. #Bioinformatics 📖 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Super excited to see our work on the Pm3e NLR that recognises two structurally diverse AVR effectors from powdery mildew out in @natcomms.nature.com Congratulations to @lukas-kunz.bsky.social, Beat Keller, and everyone involved! Check it out ➡️https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-72199-w

Thrilled to share our paper now out in Nature Plants 🎉 We developed a genome-host association (GHA) approach to study pathogen adaptation directly from field metadata by using the originating host cultivar as phenotype. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#TansleyInsight: Entanglement of plant immunity and endomembrane trafficking revealed by plant–powdery mildew fungal interactions Thordal-Christensen et al. 👇 📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #LatestIssue #PlantScience @sohini-d.bsky.social

Thank you @marioncmueller.bsky.social, @binebrumm.bsky.social, Eric Kemen, Yiheng Hu and Thomas Lahaye for this nice common effort on effector diversity. Diversify and conquer: How effector diversity is shaped by host–microbe co-evolution doi.org/10.1371/jour...

New OA Article: "Virulence on Pm4 kinase-based resistance is determined by two divergent wheat powdery mildew effectors" rdcu.be/eY3ED AvrPm4 effector / wheat Pm4. The pathogen can evade Pm4 recognition by expressing the suppressor SvrPm4, an RNase-like effector.

Wei Shi @wshisky.bsky.social & Merle‘s work is online. Wei really pushed this work from scratch and Merle linked it to MLA diversification…3rd (co-)first author paper in her PhD. Very proud PI! And only possible through collaboration with G. Döhlemann, @grandpahiro.bsky.social &, Matt Platre. (1/x)

When you realize that you're each holding a piece of the same puzzle: Avirulence on the wheat mildew resistance gene Pm4 is controlled by two opposing factors: AvrPm4 and SvrPm4. A collaborative project with @zoebernasconi.bsky.social, Aline Herger, Maria del Pilar Caro and many others. Check it out

Evolution of HMA-integrated tandem kinases accompanied by expansion of target pathogens https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.15.692859v1

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi boost plant resilience by remodelling the plant-pathogen membrane interface Check-out the latest paper from @alexguyon.bsky.social & @dromius.bsky.social 📖 doi.org/10.1016/j.ce... in @cp-cellreports.bsky.social News article www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/news/arbuscu...

Our latest pre-print on TE-mediated tandem duplication of the ToxB effector is now online...still a puzzle for us but we think it is in a Helitron! Together with amazing collaborators, Reem Aboukhaddour and Ryan Gourlie #TE #fungi www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New light on old stones: a fossil #fungus in #symbiosis with one of the oldest known land plants @chistinesd.bsky.social, et al. nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @dromius.bsky.social @ffercoq.bsky.social #PlantScience Summary also available in French and Spanish.

A wheat NLR conferring broad-spectrum resistance against powdery mildew by recognizing two structurally diverse AVR effectors. Interested? Check out our newest preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Super excited to see our work on the NLRseek program finally published 🥳 Here we identify new NLRs against major wheat pathogens and present a pipeline for NLR identification. Huge thank you to all of the co-authors for bringing this work together! @matthewmoscou.bsky.social rdcu.be/eIGvv

New: ‘Kronos’ #wheat genome preprint • PacBio+Hi-C; 99.9% BUSCO • 2.3k curated NLR loci (1,089 high conf) • 3k EMS datasets re-mapped; 📈 new mutations • Curated smallRNA atlas 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... zenodo.org/records/1021... #genomics #openscience team effort led by Dr Kyungyong Seong 💫

Check out our new pre-print! ✨ We cloned AvrWTK4, the first wheat powdery mildew effector recognised by a tandem kinase protein, and show that an HMA-like integrated domain in WTK4 acts as pathogen decoy. Discover the whole story on bioRxiv ⬇️

First a pentamer, then a hexamer… now an octamer! The riddle of the enigmatic CCG10-NLR immune receptor family cracked open 🔥 Congrats Guanghao @GuanghaoGuo He Zhang @mhz1989 Selva @M__Selvaraj et al. #NLRbiology #plantsci #immunology

Check out our work on virulence on Pm4 controlled not by one, but two effectors! Avirulence vs. Suppression, a beautiful case of the arms race between wheat and mildew. Work led by @zoebernasconi.bsky.social , Aline Herger, Pilar Caro, and @lukas-kunz.bsky.social 😍🌱🦠! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Molecular investigation of Rlm3 from rapeseed as a broad-spectrum resistance gene against fungal pathogens producing structurally conserved effectors https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.03.635517v1

Fungal 'sex' is so cool and def gender bending ;). Go check out our @plos.org pathogen perl "Sexual recombination in cereal rust fungi: Knowns and unknowns of pathogen evolution and adaptation" journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

Latest from the lab 📰 🍄 🦠 - Molecular Insights into Fungal Innate Immunity using genetically tractable model systems, Neurospora crassa and Pseudomonas syringae. When fungi and bacteria meet, they really grow on each other! Led by a PhD student Grace Stark www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

@tbadet.bsky.social and I have a preprint out on transposon silencing in fungi! Genome size evolution is fascinating and showcases the dynamic nature of transposon activation. What we understand less are the dynamics of transposon defense systems encoded by the genomes. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

This is a truly awesome story by @priyaramakrishna.bsky.social & @nikogeldner.bsky.social et al. #CryoSEM imaging of elements!!! They just opened the floodgates for many many cool discoveries!!! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Obligate biotrophic fungi cause some of the most devastating diseases on cereals. They are also highly difficult to study…. It is truely remarkable how well described the barley and what powdery mildews are. Here you find an overview on the current knowledge and summary of great resources. Enjoy!

"A study of federally funded research projects in the United States estimated that principal investigators spend on average about 45% of their time on administrative activities related to applying for and managing projects rather than conducting active research" www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

#PlantScienceClassics #17: The Mildew Resistance Locus O (MLO). 80 years ago Rudolf Freisleben & Alfred Lein created the first powdery mildew resistant #barley plant. 30yrs ago the gene was mapped,&25 yrs ago cloned - yet, it's mode of action remains a mystery. doi.org/10.1007/BF01... #PlantImmunity

Cool read in @plosbiology.bsky.social showing that horizontal transfers between fungal Fusarium species contributed to successive outbreaks of coffee wilt disease, and suggesting a key role for Starship transposons journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Pan-genome bridges wheat structural variations with habitat and breeding «  We investigated the copy number changes of NLR genes across genomes from different periods (1950–1960s, 1980-1990s and post-2000s) » www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New carefully conducted study from @michela-audisio.bsky.social finds little evidence for previous, spectacular claims of massive carbon transfer between roots of trees (but support for plant-fungus carbon transfer). nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Rhizobium rhizogenes A4-derived strains mediate hyper-efficient transient gene expression in Nicotiana benthamiana and other solanaceous plants www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Conserved effector families render Phytophthora species vulnerable to recognition by NLR receptors in nonhost plants Soohyun Oh et al. 2024 rdcu.be/d1f33

Struggling to interpret or depict extensive copy-number variations of pathogen effectors? This paper by the group of @mfseidl.bsky.social might hold some inspiration: doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Happy to see our paper out @ Nat Comm We discovered a bacterial NLR-like pattern recognition receptor that can sense 3 different viral proteins as a signature for infection. This explains its broad defense against different phage families Congrats Nathalie Béchon! www.nature.com/articles/s41...