Lots of exciting ML papers this week, Pik-1 to rubisco 👀 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Programmable design of synthetic plant immune receptors for pathogen protein recognition

The limited diversity and recognition scope of natural plant immune receptors impede resistance breeding against rapidly evolving pathogens. Here we report programmable design of synthetic plant immun...

science.org

Targeted DNA insertion remains a major bottleneck in plant engineering. We developed an avian R2 retrotransposon as an efficient plant genome editor to precisely insert large DNA payloads at targeted sites: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Congratulations to @kimuchenje03.bsky.social and the team! 🧵👇

Announcing our new free Webinar series sponsored by GetGenome: Road to Jeju. Check out our Legends and Rising Stars of IS-MPMI speakers. Sign up to attend the first talk by Roger Innes on June 17. lnkd.in/gw4pKp4K Check back for how to apply to give a Rising Stars of IS-MPMI talk.

This is wild: HMA domain proteins binding a MAX effector to activate NLR-mediated immunity through cNMP signaling molecules. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Optimized glycosylation patterns to recapitulate arabidopsis FLS2-flagellin binding in yeast surface display 👏 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Tuning Yeast Glycosylation Proximal to the FLS2-flg22 Binding Interface enables Functional Yeast Surface Display under Induced ER Stress

Pattern recognition receptors such as FLAGELLIN SENSING 2 (FLS2) are central to plant immunity and attractive targets for engineering broader detection of bacterial phytopathogens. However, evaluating...

biorxiv.org

Save the american chestnut 🌰

bioRxiv Synthetic Biology@biorxiv-synthbio.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Two-Year Field Trial of Genetically Engineered American Chestnut Reveals Greater Fungal Blight Tolerance Compared to Wild-Type Full-Sibling Trees https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.07.687213v1

Plant synthetic biology faculty opening – come be my colleague! 🌱🧬 @universityofga.bsky.social Department of Plant Biology is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Plant Synthetic Biology for Strategic Resources Research. Join UGA's growing plant synbio community!

jmb, phd@jmbrkphd.bsky.social · 10mo ago

We're hiring! Please spread the word. We have an opening for an Assistant Professor in Plant Synthetic Biology for Strategic Resources Research. See ad for details – and apply to join us here in Athens, GA! 🪴 #PlantBiology #SyntheticBiology #PlantScience #AcademicJobs #UGA

Reading this 👀 new tool for in vivo plant protein selection www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Engineered geminivirus replicons enable rapid in planta directed evolution

Directed evolution can rapidly generate genetic variants with new and enhanced properties, yet efficient platforms for performing such evolution directly in plant cells have been lacking. We developed...

science.org

Really excited to join Stanford ChemE this September! We'll engineer proteins in plant immune and hormone pathways, combining high-throughput directed evolution with ML. Our goal is to enhance climate stress resilience and disease resistance in crops: rim.stanford.edu

Harnessing synthetic biology to engineer resilient crops

rim.stanford.edu

Found last season's EquiSciTrack series helpful for the job search!

Studying wild resistant varieties -> basic biology -> a solution to a devastating disease in citrus. Pretty amazing

Dan Kliebenstein@spicybotrytis.bsky.social · last yr.

I had fun collaborating about conceptualization susceptibility loci and evolution constraining downstream ability to evolve new resistances. Really need to better understand gene, network and species extinction in plant lineages. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🌱From Nature Genetics: RWT4, a wheat tandem kinase protein, directly binds and phosphorylates a fungal effector to trigger defense - highlighting TKPs as effector sensors. (Yi-Chang Sung, Suji Baik, Gitta Coaker) ▶️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Wheat tandem kinase RWT4 directly binds a fungal effector to activate defense - Nature Genetics

This study shows that RWT4, a wheat tandem kinase, confers resistance to the fungal pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae by directly binding to the pathogen effector AvrPWT4 and activating host defense.

nature.com

Toddler and i enjoy the same book somehow

I've also been thinking about this: "Why Are There So Few Commercially Successful Crop Varieties Engineered for Disease Resistance?" bsppjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

It‘s Complicated: Why Are There So Few Commercially Successful Crop Varieties Engineered for Disease Resistance?

It is more than 40 years since the era of transgenic plants began and more than 30 years after the cloning of the first plant disease resistance genes. Despite extensive progress in our mechanistic u....

bsppjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

If you are a #WNT lover (who is not?) you cannot miss the incoming Grodon Research Conference www.grc.org/wnt-signalin... and the preceeding GRSeminar www.grc.org/wnt-signalin... a unique forum for younger scientists to present their work 👉 Please help me spread the word and RT (or RB?)!🙏

Former USDA employee (and a UC Davis colleague) terminated days before her due date: "We wouldn't have food without our farmers. A lot of us working for the USDA, that's what we do, we support American farmers" abcnews.go.com/Politics/vid...

Video Former USDA employee terminated days before her due date

Justine Beaulieu was impacted by the Trump layoffs days before she was due to give birth, losing her maternity leave and her health insurance in limbo.

abcnews.go.com

We're celebrating our 10th anniversary this year and remembering some great moments from the past decade! In February 2022, IGI's Pam Ronald won the Wolf Prize in Agriculture for her “pioneering work on disease resistance and environmental stress tolerance in rice.” Read more: ow.ly/kAqe50UPW9s

A tour de force starting with C. elegans juice that identified a nematode peptide MAMP-plant immune receptor pair

Yasuhiro Kadota@yasukadota.bsky.social · 2y ago

Excited to share our new publication on a novel MAMP peptide conserved across nematodes, insects, and fungal pathogens, along with the RLK essential for its signaling. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I'm very excited to share my first graduate research project! Check out our preprint which describes how data generated with directed evolution can be used to model the phenotypic effects of naturally-evolved sequence variants. (1/11) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Combining Directed Evolution with Machine Learning Enables Accurate Genotype-to-Phenotype Predictions

Linking sequence variation to phenotypic effects is critical for efficient exploitation of large genomic datasets. Here we present a novel approach combining directed evolution with protein language m...

biorxiv.org

This is wild. A fungal pathogen-secreted molecule can transdifferentiate bundle sheath into xylem, increasing water content of plant host under drought stress. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A single pathogen-secreted protein reprograms plants for drought resilience

Climate change-enforced drought stress conditions and diseases caused by pathogens often co-occur and represent one of the greatest challenges in plant science. Wilt pathogens that colonize water-cond...

biorxiv.org

Review of CRISPR-edited crops - personal favorite is non-browning avocados!

Innovative Genomics Institute@innovativegenomics.bsky.social · 2y ago

Seedless berries, avocados that don't go brown, cows with a genetic haircut, and more – learn about how CRISPR 🧬 is being used in plant 🌾 & animal 🐮 agriculture in our reader-friendly review, written by IGI's Tonio Chaparro! Read here: ow.ly/KLMJ50UpjA7

In her second paper Flor and team (collaboration with Lingdong Shi and Jill Banfield) showed that reduced methane emissions in transgenic rice genotypes are associated with altered rhizosphere microbial hydrogen cycling. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Flor and team also have two new papers! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Tyrosine-sulfated peptide hormone induces flavonol biosynthesis to control elongation and differentiation in Arabidopsis primary root

In Arabidopsis roots, growth initiation and cessation are organized into distinct zones. How regulatory mechanisms are integrated to coordinate these processes and maintain proper growth progression o...

biorxiv.org

Kudos to Ellen Rim and team on their fantastic new paper describing a HTP approach for generating new immune specificities. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Directed evolution of a plant immune receptor for broad spectrum recognition of pathogen effectors

Rapid development of immune receptors that protect crops from emerging pathogens is a paramount goal. We applied high throughput directed evolution to the ligand binding domain of the rice immune rece...

biorxiv.org