A sure sign someone doesn’t do integrative research; never having had to adjust the wording, structure or style of a manuscript independent of the journal style.

If you at the cloning of QTLs since the early 90s, we have always known structural variants were important for phenotypic variation. The pangenomes are confirmation rather than origination of the idea.

In the age of internet searching, etc. What is the point of a ScienCV or any biosketch for a grant proposal?

Question for the #PlantPathology community. What is your favorite work showing how a pathogen detects the plant and responds? e.g. does Pseudomonas sense host/non-host and adjust?, Xanthamonas?, Blumeria?, etc?. Trying to build up a literature base independent of google.

🌱From Trends in Plant Science: Evolution-informed pest management pinpoints PUB21 as a key switch for citrus HLB resistance, with AI-designed peptides boosting immunity and killing the pathogen. (Daniel J. Kliebenstein) ▶️ www.cell.com/trends/plant... #PlantScience #PlantPathology

Question for the #PlantPathology community. What is your favorite work showing how a pathogen detects the plant and responds? e.g. does Pseudomonas sense host/non-host and adjust?, Xanthamonas?, Blumeria?, etc?. Trying to build up a literature base independent of google.

New paper with @smishra677.bsky.social! How many different trees can be generated by just one duplication event? It turns out A WHOLE LOT, if you consider the coalescent process. 1/ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

One last Christmas puppy evening!

The brothers are finally together albeit with a bit of fog.

Predicting epistasis across proteins by structural logic by the amazing Michelle Tang et al www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Ever wondered if diverse plant species respond similarly when infected by the same exact pathogen? Infect different asterids and rosids with the same Botrytis genotypes and teh short answer, quite differently. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @annajomu.bsky.social @ccaseys.bsky.social (1/3)

The combined ideas of shifting to a fixed monetary supply via crypto and increasing population seems to have nothing to do with abating inflation. Instead it is a giant hedge to shift all inflation costs onto the havenots and the next generation. And fix wealth in few hands forever.

How much do you think pathogens "measure" their host to plan their attack? Do they simply say "likely host, attack." and then hope it works. Or do they say "Host X, attack with chess Plan X". And if they "measure" how do they "measure"?

Bruce Hammock was a scientific legend, brilliant and kind. He was always happy to talk and collaborate without ego. Like many others, I will miss him. 💔

On NLR evolution, any thoughts about a potential for something equivalent to the MHC locus in plants? A meta-stable syntenic position across the viridiplantae that constantly spits out such completely new NLRs that we haven't realized it exists because no NLR orthology?

An interesting and rarely juxtaposed dichotomy of theories/assumptions/thoughts(?) on plant specialized metabolites. 1) specialized metabolites are costly to produce and at loggerheads with growth. 2) specialized metabolites are largely discarded and not catabolized/recycled. Thoughts? #secmet

Someone wants their Christmas peppermint.

#ASPBPlantCellTuesday #ICYMI

#ASPBPlantCellTuesday #ICYMI

Bummed to see corn plants drawn so clearly wrong. The tassel does not magically turn into an ear on the top of the plant. Not a great look for a plant journal.

Interesting how I keep seeing papers say that QTL mapping of enzyme variation to metabolite to insect herbivory and tritrophic interactions hasn't been done before. #secmet

What if generalist pathogens aren't brute killers but poly-specialist perfectionists, optimizing to each host.

Settled for a long winters nap.

What are everyone's favorite papers showing that individual plant TFs function to coordinate primary and specialized metabolism? Rather than solely regulating a specialized metabolite. #secmet

An atmospheric holidays.

Every time a scientist says "my area of expertise takes years of training but I can learn the rest from a book" a chatGPT agent gets its wings. Every single gd time.

Reupping this perennial #MPMI question, has an apoplastic Superoxide dismutase been cloned and proven to take RBOHD O2-• into H2O2? Or are all the models still assuming?

Every time a scientist says "my area of expertise takes years of training but I can learn the rest from a book" a chatGPT agent gets its wings. Every single gd time.

Maybe the best way to really affect the companies suggesting genetics to design your kid .. Pass legislation making those companies legally and financially responsible for any and all known and unknown pleiotropies and epistatic interactions. Nothing better than unknown and unlimited liability.

An interesting aspect of transcriptomics on plant-pathogen interactions. The data exists to say that plant hormones don't have synergistic or antagonistic interactions, instead it is a property of the output gene. For example, there are lots of genes in the datasets showing SA-JA synergism. #MPMI

Elli Cryan, coadvised by @spicybotrytis.bsky.social and I, giving her exit seminar next week! Zoom link in the alt text

Interesting phenomena in pop and evo genetics, when you have loci or even sequences associated with a trait, that is considered generalizable information. Once you know the actual function of these genes their perceived generalizability inherently decreases. Even if the only change is knowing fnxn.

Last of the years pomegranates preparing for their starring role as a Christmas aperitif.

So if one wants to claim there are no RNA diffs between two genotypes, is it appropriate to use only technical replicates, only three samples per genotype, a higher than normal q threshold and a log2 threshold to call difference? Shouldn't that claim require the reverse, lots of reps, etc.

Convergence and constraint in glucosinolate evolution across the Brassicaceae (Amanda Agosto Ramos, Kevin A Bird, Annanya Jain, Gabriel Philip Sumo, Odinaka Okegbe, Lucy Holland, Daniel J Kliebenstein) doi.org/10.1093/plce... #PlantScience @aspbofficial

If one supports raising college football ticket prices to afford a better quarterback or O’line, I assume they think higher tuition is acceptable for a better university?

Happy to see this paper from my time with @spicybotrytis.bsky.social out in @theplantcell.bsky.social! Amanda, a fantastic PhD student with Dan, led this "phylo-functional" work & uncovered complex duplication & loss of a glucosinolate gene across the Brassicaceae affecting enantiomeric specificity

Camera picking up a smidge of northern lights in Davis

There are lots of answers out there that are beautiful because the truth of the system is beautiful. If I find one of these beautiful facts, it doesn’t make me brilliant. Just right place and right time. True scientific heroes acknowledge that fact.

How many other people teaching Genetics go into how Mendelian genetics concepts do not need DNA to be true? Or how Mendelian genetics does not inherently make causal arguments? Or how polygenic traits follow Mendelian rules?

Enzyme/GO overlap note of the week. Plant Glutathione-S-transferases might have more biosynthetic functions than ROS detoxification functions. Also, CYP450s are listed as redox genes but are almost all biosynthetic. So if you see ROS/Redox terms, take a glance to make sure it isn't biosynthesis.

I wonder how Ross Douthat from @nytimes.com is thinking his oped on current foreign policy success is aging? After only a week.

In plant-pathogen or plant-microbe interactions what is the proper null. - there is specific coevolution of any pathogen/microbe such that it was at least partly adapted to the host isolated. -the host of isolation may have not effected the pathogen in the slightest.

Why can’t an American brewery understand how simple is super tasty. No need for bourbon barrels, peanut butter, imperial, espresso, etc. just a solid brown/dark beer. Perfect fall yardwork break. Admittedly the Maui coconut porter is a guilty exception.

It is official, I am fully my maternal grandmother. The African violet is supposedly a cutting from hers.

So theoretical question, if one can shift a trait from oligo to polygenic simply by removing a large effect allele from the population, is there a real difference or is it just human desire to define?

Waiting for Ross Douthat at @nytimes.com to write an article about how the pope is wrong and that unrepentant violence and aggression against anyone is perfectly appropriate for a Catholic to support. While being pedantic about and around everything.

MPMI Terminology question - What simple phrasing would you use differentiate a plant response that happens to all members of a pathogen species versus the same plants response that is limited to one or a few pathogen genotypes in the species.

I'm thinking I should make this a weekly post - Does anyone have good literature on a anthocyanin biosynthetic mutant having a stress sensitivity phenotype in the wild beyond UV-B?

@planteditors.bsky.social, any good suggestions on how to erase writing from ones head? I'm teaching a couple of writing classes and realizing I can't erase the previous document from my head efficiently enough to pay full attention to the next. PS - Yes, I should not be teaching writing classes.