This Starship is 93 kb long and carries 2 captains and 43 cargo genes. Because it confers ARsenic resistance, we named it ARiane (as the European space rocket 🚀 ).
Happy to share our work! 🍄🍇 Botrytis cinerea grapevine-specialized strains harbor a specific repertoire of transposons. While retrotransposon-derived small RNAs do not appear to play a significant role in virulence on grapevine, a new giant transposon—a #Starship— confers arsenic resistance.
Peer-reviewed version of our study led by @aliceeseola.bsky.social first seen on @biorxiv-cellbio.bsky.social showing the exquisite level of control of organelle trafficking & autophagy exerted during plant infection by the blast fungus. Thanks to all co-authors.
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
So far, Ariane has only been detected in strains isolated from grapevine. Arsenic was widely used in vineyards throughout the 20th century to control grapevine trunk diseases and insect pests. Ariane may therefore have played an important role in the adaptation of B. cinerea to vineyards.
Fun fact: In the Greek mythology, Ariadne marries Dionysus, the god of wine 🍷 Thanks to co-authors @inrae-bioger.bsky.social @umragroecologie.bsky.social and to the ANR project VITAE🍇 Any feedback on these data is welcome!
This animated map illustrates how four of the ancient world’s most important domesticated grain crops spread across the Old World between 7,000 and 3,500 years ago. Source: buff.ly/7GnMCQr
We dive into the dynamics of #starships 🚀 in a fungal pathogen to ask: how might these giant #transposons impact human health? We find they drive genome-wide variation, encode clinically-relevant traits and even transpose within the same strain! 🍄🧪 out today in mBio #goteam doi.org/10.1128/mbio...
Announcing our new free Webinar series sponsored by GetGenome: Road to Jeju. The series will feature 7 webinars with Legends and Rising Stars of IS-MPMI. Sign up to attend the first talk by Roger Innes on June 17. lnkd.in/gw4pKp4K Rising Star info coming soon. please repost!
Muriel Viaud
The blast fungus forms a force-generating appressorium for plant infection. Eseola
et al. show how individual spore cells adopt distinct fates, trafficking organelles
to the appressorium or undergoing...
A funded PhD position for studying wheat pathogen adaptation to climate factors is open in my lab
@inrae-bioger.bsky.social @univparissaclay.bsky.social
in collab. @jki-research.bsky.social (Germany), with a start planned for autumn 2026 ▶️ eng-bioger.versailles-saclay.hub.inrae.fr/teams-and-pl...
Simon Kuestenmacher
Emile Gluck-Thaler
International Society for Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions
Role of transposons in the specialization of Botrytis cinerea to grapevine: Insights into small RNAs and a new Starship https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.30.728154v1
