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/...
www.science.org
Plants and animals respond to pathogen attack by mounting innate immune responses that require intracellular nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) proteins. These immune receptors detect pathog...
Bacteria evolving to survive the soil battleground 🦠🛡️
Super glad I got to be part of this fascinating study, led by my friend @jinyi-zhu.bsky.social, who’s equally impressive in the lab and at the gym 💪
Emma Turley started her PhD expecting the effector ChEC108 would aid Colletotrichum establish infection, but she instead discovered that when it makes it's way to plasmodesmata it's bound by host HIPP6, triggering PD closure and impeding infection. #PlantScience
The model alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii forms mutualistic interactions with Verticillium fungi https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.20.726472v1
geneML: Gene annotation across diverse fungal species using deep learning https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.18.725946v1
"Academic science is not only about productivity, it is also about deep understanding, exploring creative solutions and training critical thinkers to be the next generation of researchers. Now is the time for the scientific community to evaluate whether AI products help or hinder these endeavours."
Thrilled to see this finally out!!
Our new work suggests #Starships helped #Colletotrichum acquire the genes needed to infect lupin.
A glimpse into how fungal pathogens emerge through horizontal transfer and genome reshaping.
biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
#Fungi #Genomics #Pathogenicity #evolution
Fungi deploy antimicrobial proteins (AMPs) to compete with microbes, including bacteria. But can bacteria fight back?
We @teamthomma.bsky.social found that some AMP-sensitive bacteria can repress AMP deployment, suggesting an unrecognized bacterial–fungal arms race.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Fantin Mesny
Excited to share our latest study with @nicksnelders.bsky.social and @teamthomma.bsky.social!
We uncover the mode of action of the V. dahliae antimicrobial effector Ave1 and show that it binds LTA and disrupts bacterial membranes 🦠
www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
