📣 New preprint! 🧵 Fantastic work led by @antonkraege.bsky.social Fact: Cerato-platanins are everywhere in fungi. Found across the fungal kingdom, implicated in everything from development to virulence to immune activation. But what do they *actually* do? We finally found the answer 👇

Thoroughly enjoyed this collaboration with @usadellab.bsky.social & @faltegoer.bsky.social groups in the @mibinet.bsky.social framework to characterize Peltigera lichen symbioses with major contributions from @ciarankelly.bsky.social & @yukiyosato.bsky.social

Björn Usadel@usadellab.bsky.social · last mo.

1/8 What if the genomic features we associate with fungal pathogens were also used by mutualists? We assembled 41 scale lichen genomes across 11 Peltigera species with 30 chromosome scale and 5 T2T revealing an unexpected genomic toolkit behind lichen symbiosis. doi.org/10.64898/202... #lichen

📣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...

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...

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...

🎉 Last week @antonkraege.bsky.social brilliantly defended his PhD thesis @unicologne.bsky.social entitled "Functional and Evolutionary Characterisation of Antimicrobial Effectors Secreted by Verticillium dahliae to Shape Host Microbiota" #proudPI #PhDone

PhD done! 🎓 Grateful to my examiners for the great discussion and to my amazing colleagues and friends for the support! ✨

Team Thomma@teamthomma.bsky.social · 6mo ago

🎉 Yesterday we enjoyed the glorious defence of @gabriellapetti.bsky.social of her @unicologne.bsky.social PhD thesis on "Homologous antimicrobial proteins in plants and fungi: conserved mechanisms shaping the plant microbiota" #proudPI #PhDone ..mind the crown modeled after the Ave1 NMR structure!😍

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, 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...

A gnotobiotic system reveals multifunctional effector roles in plant-fungal pathogen dynamics

Plants host diverse microbiota that influence physiological processes and can enhance resilience against invading pathogens that, in turn, evolved effector proteins to manipulate host microbiota in th...

biorxiv.org

📣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...

Starship giant transposons dominate plastic genomic regions in a fungal plant pathogen and drive virulence evolution

Starships form a recently discovered superfamily of giant transposons in Pezizomycotina fungi, implicated in mediating horizontal transfer of diverse cargo genes between fungal genomes. Their elusive nature has long obscured their significance, and their impact on genome evolution remains poorly understood. Here, we reveal a surprising abundance and diversity of Starships in the phytopathogenic fungus Verticillium dahliae. Remarkably, Starships dominate the plastic genomic compartments involved in host colonization, are enriched in virulence-associated genes, and exhibit genetic and epigenetic characteristics associated with adaptive genome evolution. We further uncover extensive horizontal transfer of Starships between Verticillium species and, strikingly, from distantly related Fusarium fungi. Finally, we demonstrate how Starship activity facilitated the de novo formation of a novel virulence gene. Our findings illuminate the profound influence of Starship dynamics on fungal genome evolution and the development of virulence. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.

doi.org

Honoured to have contributed to this work by Andreas Keppler and the Vorholt lab 🦠🌱

Plant microbiota feedbacks through dose-responsive expression of general non-self response genes

Nature Plants - The plant general non-self response system is triggered by leaf microbiota members and, in turn, impacts their colonization.

nature.com