Thanks to everyone involved in this work
@qunliu07.bsky.social, Anna Neefjes, Roksolana Kobylinska, @samtmugford.bsky.social, @mmarzo.bsky.social, James Canham (@thesainsburylab.bsky.social), @marischuster.bsky.social, Renier van der Hoorn,
Yazhou Chen, @saskiahogenhout.bsky.social
Aphid Saliva fans, happy news, this amazing story is now out in Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... congrats @qunliu07.bsky.social @saskiahogenhout.bsky.social et al @johninnescentre.bsky.social 24h after a triumphant presentation at #ismpmi2025
Here we show that Cathepsin Bs are present in aphid oral secretions, and localised to p-bodies in the plant cell. P-bodies are canonically involved in storage of mRNA, so what is an aphid Cathepsin doing in there?
We found CathBs interact with the key immune regulatory protein EDS1, and pull it into p-bodies away from its normal locations, and that this interrupts normal immune signaling pathways.
Interestingly we found that CathBs also interact with a Hsp20 chaperone, and that this can inhibit the relocalisation of EDS1 and restore aphid resistance, identifying the Hsp20 Acd28.9 as a resistance factor to aphids.
We're happy to present a pre-print from the Hogenhout lab (@saskiahogenhout.bsky.social), describing how a family of proteases in aphid oral secretions suppress plant immunity.
Our paper is now online in Science Advances! Congrats @saskiahogenhout.bsky.social @johninnescentre.bsky.social and all coauthors!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
We previously described a gene family expansion of cathepsin Bs in the green peach aphid Myzus persicae that reduce plant resistance to aphids, but we did not know the mechanism.