PhD done! 🎓
Grateful to my examiners for the great discussion and to my amazing colleagues and friends for the support! ✨
Very happy to share results from the first year of my PhD: we found that the model alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii engages in a mutualistic interaction with Verticillium fungi. With @hroevenich.bsky.social and Urs.
Graphical abstract: 🟢 + 🍄= 💚
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Undermining the cry for help: The phytopathogenic fungus Verticillium dahliae secretes an antimicrobial effector protein to undermine host recruitment of antagonistic Pseudomonas bacteria https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.09.658588v1
📣Last week another @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social dropped:
"A fungal pathogen effector that shapes host plant microbiota kills bacteria through lipoteichoic acid binding and membrane disruption" a joint effort by @nicksnelders.bsky.social & @gabriellapetti.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Honoured to have contributed to this work by Andreas Keppler and the Vorholt lab 🦠🌱
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/...
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...
Last week, our newest @biorxiv-plants.bsky.social preprint saw the light, led by @wolki95.bsky.social and co-directed by Kathrin Wippel (SILS, Amsterdam): A gnotobiotic system reveals multifunctional effector roles in plant-fungal pathogen dynamics www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
📣New year, new preprint @biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social 🎉! A study led by the brilliant @yukiyosato.bsky.social showing that Starship giant transposons dominate plastic genomic regions in the fungal plant pathogen Verticillium dahliae and drive virulence evolution. 🧵[1/12] doi.org/10.1101/2025...