I am very pleased to present the lab’s first #bluetorial! This concerns our recent publication in Development @dev-journal.bsky.social doi.org/10.1242/dev.... This work, led by postdoc (and former grad student) Kelsey Reed, is the result of many years of hard work by a wonderful team. (1/n)

A protoplast-based method to visualize early cell biological events in plant cellular reprogramming and regeneration

Summary: This study presents a live-imaging platform for tracking individual plant protoplasts in culture, enabling analysis of cellular processes, signaling dynamics and developmental transitions.

doi.org

PhD Position open in the lab of Vesna Bacheva: A 4-year PhD position is available at the interface of biophysical modeling, soft matter and cell mechanobiology. Application deadline 16 October. Find more info and apply here: www.academictransfer.com/en/jobs/3640...

PhD Position in Soft-Matter Modeling for Mechanobiology

A 4-year PhD position is available at the interface of biophysical modeling, soft matter and cell mechanobiology at the Groningen Research Institute of Pharmacy, within the Faculty of Science and Engi...

academictransfer.com

Plant Acupuncture: a low-cost and open-source device for local mechanical stimulation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.10.750389v1

New Preprint! We use #AFM and CarboTag-based #FLIM to describe rapid cell wall mechanisms of Phytosulfokines & Brassinosteroids and investigate how these processes are initiated on the nanoscale by using #sptPALM! PS: This is also the main story of my PhD project😊✌🏻 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Distinct nanoscale dynamics of growth receptor complexes link hormone perception to rapid cell wall remodeling

Cell elongation is a fundamental process allowing plants to change size and shape, a process governed by several growth promoting hormones. While hormones such as brassinosteroids (BRs) and phytosulfo...

biorxiv.org

Very excited to present our work at the MechanoBioTalks next week! Thank you very much @green-te.bsky.social the opportunity and for bringing ECRs together.

Cecilia Borassi@ceciborassi.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Sign up for the upcoming MechanoBioTalk by Neftaly Cruz Mireles (University of Zurich): "Defining protein phosphorylation networks at the plant–pathogen interface"- 16th September 2PM CET. Find the registration link and more information in our website: green-te.nl/activities/ @green-te.bsky.social

PhD position available (start 2027) in my group at TUM! We study how mechanical stress controls cell cycle progression and cytoskeletal dynamics in plants, combining cell biology, biochemistry and biophysics. CV + cover letter to mariana.romeiro-motta@tum.de. RTs welcome! #PlantSciJobs

2 years postdoc position open in Liam Elliott's team @liamelliottplants.bsky.social at @lbmcinlyon.bsky.social Nice people, good place, excellent science ! #interface2026 meeting @ensdelyon.bsky.social @rdplab.bsky.social

📣...and now for something completely different: no plant pathogens, no Verticillium, but lichens! Driven by our lichen king🤴@ciarankelly.bsky.social with help of a.o. @hroevenich.bsky.social @usadellab.bsky.social @vivienrosenthal.bsky.social Watch for more in future! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Decoupled evolution of antimicrobial repertoires in lichen-forming fungi

Lichens are stable multipartite symbioses in which a fungal mycobiont associates with one or more photosynthetic partners while hosting complex microbiomes. Secreted antimicrobial proteins (AMPs) have...

biorxiv.org

Ciaran Kelly@ciarankelly.bsky.social · last mo.

Our new preprint is out! 🍄 Decoupled evolution of antimicrobial repertoires in lichen-forming fungi We compared many lichen-forming fungal genomes to ask how different photobiont associations relate to their antimicrobial repertoires.

New postdoc opportunity in our team! Topic is computational analysis of (meta)genomic data to study evolution of plant-microbiome interactions. Part of the AEGIS consortium (aegisearth.bio/en). Apply here: www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/p... Please RT!

Postdoc on computational (meta)genomic analysis

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges for global food security, requiring new approaches to understand and harness the natural diversity that enables plants and their associated microbiomes...

wur.nl

📣 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 👇

Out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social the improved version of our paper! I am very proud of this work with @ckirchhelle.bsky.social, @nathan-german.bsky.social, Annamaria Kiss, @moritznowack.bsky.social and others! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Plant cells at the organ surface use mechanical cues to activate a specific growth-control program

During morphogenesis of multicellular organs, cells in distinct positions need to meet specific functional requirements to form the appropriate tissue…

sciencedirect.com

Our work now on its final version. We mapped the mechanical properties of roots at tissue and single cell levels using Brillouin microscopy and molecular rotors. Additional mutants and stress measurements from what we previously showed in the preprint are included. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The mechanical properties of Arabidopsis thaliana roots adapt dynamically during development and to stress

Brillouin microscopy reveals in vivo dynamics of mechanical properties during plant development and response to stress.

science.org

How do transcription factors bind DNA strongly, and in a switch like manner, while remaining sequence specific? Our new paper on a canonical plant TF suggests the answer is a previously underappreciated assembly state: transcription factor nanoclusters. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Nanoclustering of a plant transcription factor enables strong yet specific DNA binding

Transcription factor nanoclusters balance the DNA binding trade-off between weakly binding oligomers and nonspecific condensates.

science.org

Online at @cellcellpress.bsky.social today: everything you always wanted (???) to know about Auxin Signaling and never dared to ask. From Jiashu, Aaron and Martijn in our team, with @luciastrader.bsky.social and Tongda Xu www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🌱 Summer reading? Here's our recent @pnas.org ! doi.org/10.1073/pnas... We reveal how plasma membrane nanodomains generate localized H₂O₂ nanoenvironments during osmotic stress. The ROP6-RBOH-PIP2;7 module creates a feedforward loop that amplifies ROS signaling. #PlantBiology #CellBiology #ROS

Nanoscale regulation of ROS signaling at the plasma membrane tunes the plant response to osmotic stress | PNAS

The spatiotemporal organization of proteins and lipids within membranes is crucial for ensuring proper cellular signaling. While the segregation of...

doi.org

Why do primary plant tissues hold their shape? We are told it's because of turgor pressure—but how does that work mechanically? We investigated how pressurized cylindrical structures support themselves. Read here: doi.org/10.1039/d6sm... Funded by @hfspo.bsky.social www.plantbiomechanics.net

Plant actin networks are rapid mechano-adaptive scaffolds www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Very proud of this fun collaborative effort. Plant actin is highly mechanoresponsive: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... and this is not a job exclusive to microtubules as is commonly assumed! See a tutorial by lead authors @jasper-lamers.bsky.social below

Plant actin networks are rapid mechano-adaptive scaffolds

The actin cytoskeleton is among the most highly conserved eukaryotic structures. In animal cells, actin plays a key role in mechanobiology, serving as a structural scaffold that shapes cellular mechan...

biorxiv.org

@jasper-lamers.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Our work on the mechanoresponsiveness of actin is out! While plant microtubules have been extensively studied for their role in mechanobiology, actin has very much been ignored. Here we show that actin responds to cellular deformations within minutes and observed it in Marchantia and Arabidopsis!

After 2 months of hard work by @shanshuo.bsky.social with huge support by @manuelgonzalezfuen.bsky.social,help by @nico-slz.bsky.social & a bit myself (😅) we did "finalise" our paper & are finally "𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸" 🤞 Here is the last version of our paper: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #openscience

Autophagy acts as a spatial organizer of cell-type-specific plant immunity

Effective plant immunity requires precise spatial coordination of immune responses across cell-types to restrict pathogens while preventing tissue damage, yet the intracellular pathways that organize ...

biorxiv.org

Şuayb Üstün@suaybuestuen.bsky.social · 4mo ago

2) 🔬We show that EDS1 is degraded by autophagy during Pst infection - most likely in the mesophyll 🌱🦠 Our model: autophagy recycles EDS1 during infection. Without this turnover, EDS1 accumulates (explaining elevated SA in atg5?!) but EDS1-dependent HR fails. 🔄💥 Ready to submit 🤞

📣 We are hiring! In the collaborative research center 'Plant Ecological Genetics' @teamthomma.bsky.social searches a PhD candidate to study the role of plant-associated microbiota in plant density responses and inter-plant competition. See project A07: sl1nk.com/b7z0doc Deadline July 10!

Happy to share our newest preprint. We developed guidelines and analysis workflows for FLIM Imaging in plants. Multiplexing with spectrally overlapping fluorophores in plants is now possible. Have a look. Any feedback is more than welcome. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Interested in learning about the latest and greatest research in how plants respond to excess salt, too little or too much water? Come to the GRC in Salt and Water Stress in Switzerland. Lots of opportunities for all career levels. www.grc.org/salt-and-wat.... Please repost!

Chemical probes + imaging can reveal spatiotemporal patterns of a wide range of physico-chemical features in plants, without the need for genetic access. We reviewed what tools exist and how they can be used & engineered. Chemistry meets plant cell biology! www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Chemical Probes for Functional Plant Imaging

The advent of spatial and quantitative biology has led to immense advances in understanding the complex inner workings of plants, down to the molecular scale. Functional imaging of live plants, which ...

annualreviews.org

The second GreenTE meeting was hosted on May 7-8th. 2 days of exciting and inspiring science! 🌱🌱Read more here 👇

Second GreenTE Annual Meeting - GreenTE

GreenTE annual meeting 2026. GTE hosted its second annual meeting in May 7-8th. The program included presentations from PhDs and […]

green-te.nl

📣 New preprint on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social: Bacteria rewire fungal antimicrobial gene expression in microbial arms races www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/... This work, led by outstanding @jinyi-zhu.bsky.social, shows that bacteria suppress fungal antimicrobial protein expression to evade antagonism

Plasmodesmal closure triggers stress responses! Turns out cells are generally better off with connections to their neighbours. This manuscript represents a decade-long team collaboration, with heroic effort from Estee Tee to lead it over the line! #PlantScience link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Plasmodesmal closure elicits stress responses - EMBO Reports

Plant cells are connected to their neighbors via plasmodesmata facilitating the exchange of nutrients and signaling molecules. During immune responses, plasmodesmata close, but how this contributes to...

link.springer.com

We are very happy and proud to present a study led by @jorgehg.bsky.social (now PI in Madrid – keep an eye on him!) in our team @bic-wur.bsky.social. In this work, we discover how auxin-regulated ARF transcription factors learned to activate transcription. A 🧵…(1/17) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A bacterial lipid triggers membrane mechanosensing immunity in Arabidopsis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.23.720373v1

Our new toolbox of plant membrane imaging probes: LipoTag. After CarboTag (cell wall probes), we have now developed a modular strategy to create non toxic, easy-to-use, and flexible probes for hassle-free live-cell imaging of plant membranes, and their tension, lipid order and oxidation. 🍀🔬

bioRxiv Plant Bio@biorxiv-plants.bsky.social · 6mo ago

LipoTag: A minimal motif for live and functional imaging of plant cell membranes. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.08.717154v1

Previously the Type II actins were described to be angiosperm specific, but we now also identified those in the seedplants. and there is much more in the manuscript :)