Out Now! Carbohydrate-active enzymes from a core root mycobiota member enable infection of multiple plant hosts #MicroSky

Carbohydrate-active enzymes from a core root mycobiota member enable infection of multiple plant hosts

Nature Microbiology, Published online: 01 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41564-026-02492-3Host-induced fungal CAZymes act as disease determinants and drive multihost compatibility.

go.nature.com

5 years ago, @hacquardst.bsky.social and I became very interested in 𝑃𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑜𝑠𝑝ℎ𝑎𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑎 𝑐𝑢𝑐𝑢𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑎, an emerging fungal pathogen that colonizes the roots of many plants 🌱 🍅 🌾 🆕📝 Final result of a huge team effort to uncover the bases of its multi-host compatibility👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Carbohydrate-active enzymes from a core root mycobiota member enable infection of multiple plant hosts - Nature Microbiology

Host-induced fungal CAZymes act as disease determinants and drive multihost compatibility.

nature.com

Genetic factors driving multi-host infection in a core member of the root mycobiota https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.12.01.690973v1

Super excited and honoured to have been awarded an ERC Starting Grant for CooPAIRation! How do plant immune receptors work together to trigger an immune response? Can we modulate immune responses for disease resistance? We will tackle these questions in CooPAIRation Positions to be announced soon!

European Research Council (ERC)@erc.europa.eu · last yr.

📣 The ERC Starting Grant call results are out! Find out which early-career researchers will receive funding this year, what they will be investigating, where they will be based... plus lots of other #ERCStG facts & figures for 2025! ➡️ buff.ly/IsafuFh #FrontierResearch 🇪🇺#EUfunded #HorizonEurope

📣 NEW PREPRINT 📝 We identified evolutionary origins of many fungal effectors! We show that fungi secrete lots of antimicrobial proteins, and that some of them were repurposed by plant pathogens for host immune suppression. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... cc @teamthomma.bsky.social

Plant-associated fungi co-opt ancient antimicrobials for host manipulation

Evolutionary histories of effector proteins secreted by fungal pathogens to mediate plant colonization remain largely elusive. While most functionally characterized effectors modulate plant immunity, ...

biorxiv.org

Coming back from 5 days of great science at #2025ISMPMI, I wanted to share some of my highlights, and particularly to mention my favourite presentations by early career researchers. A thread 🧵 ⬇️

I'm very happy that this paper is now published in PNAS! Isochorismate-based salicylic acid biosynthesis appears to have emerged in the Brassicales after the divergence of C. papaya, likely within the timeframe between the divergence of B. maritima and R. odorata. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Emergence of isochorismate-based salicylic acid biosynthesis within Brassicales | PNAS

Salicylic acid (SA) is a major defense phytohormone. In Arabidopsis thaliana, the isochorismate (IC) pathway is the primary route for pathogen-indu...

pnas.org

Our paper on Pseudomonas intra-genus competition in SynComs on Arabidopsis roots is now out @plosbiology.org ! 🎉 If you want to chat about the story, visit poster 374 tomorrow, Thursday #2025ISMPMI journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Pseudomonas intra-genus competition determines the protective function of synthetic bacterial communities in Arabidopsis thaliana

The plant microbiome can protect its host against detrimental bacterial strains. This study shows that competition among Pseudomonas bacteria in synthetic bacterial communities determines how well the...

journals.plos.org

Celebrating a new PhD at @mpipz.bsky.social! 🎓 Dr. Ram Sevak Raja Kumar defended her thesis in @hacquardst.bsky.social’s lab. Congrats, and all the best for what’s next! 🌟 #PhDone #PlantScience

📣Paper Alert! 📣New publication out by @hacquardst.bsky.social and his team on the development of MetaFlowTrain – a new tool to study metabolic exchange and interactions within microbial communities @naturecomms.bsky.social 👏🥳Congratulations! 👉https://bit.ly/44jnM1H www.nature.com/articles/s41...

MetaFlowTrain: a highly parallelized and modular fluidic system for studying exometabolite-mediated inter-organismal interactions - Nature Communications

Metabolic interactions shape ecosystems but remain hard to study. Here, authors present MetaFlowTrain, a modular, low-cost fluidic system controlling metabolic fluxes between microbes, and show its va...

nature.com

Very clever design and nicely presented. 👍

Guillaume Chesneau@chesneau-g.bsky.social · last yr.

🚨Excited to share our new publication! MetaFlowTrain, a highly parallelized and modular fluidic system to study exometabolite interactions between microbes-microbes-plants 🌱 @hacquardst.bsky.social @herpell.bsky.social S.Wolf S.Perin @mpipz.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNUf... 🧵Thread 5/5:

New post doc opportunity in our team at Kiel University in the north of Germany. We are looking for a motivated molecular biologists to unravel plant-microbe interactions in grasses. Please see: www.uni-kiel.de/personal/de/... More to our research and group here: www.environmental-genomics.de

Come and work with me! The Nature Micro team is expanding and we're looking for someone to champion microbial ecology, plant micro & related areas for the journal Knowledge of microbial ecology/plant micro is desirable but we're open to applications from all microbiologists Link below 👇

Nature Microbiology@natmicrobiol.nature.com · last yr.

📢We are #hiring a full time editor to handle areas including microbial ecology & plant microbiology🦠🌱 This position will work closely with @naturecomms.bsky.social #microsky #microbiomesky #ecologysky 🧪 Available in NYC, Madrid, or other US offices Read more & apply here: shorturl.at/yvdYJ

Would you like to study metabolite-based microbe-microbe or plant-microbe interactions but do not have the tools to? @chesneau-g.bsky.social came up with a simple solution with great potential! Check out our new publication in @naturecomms.bsky.social and Guillaume’s 🧵 below for details👇

Guillaume Chesneau@chesneau-g.bsky.social · last yr.

🚨Excited to share our new publication! MetaFlowTrain, a highly parallelized and modular fluidic system to study exometabolite interactions between microbes-microbes-plants 🌱 @hacquardst.bsky.social @herpell.bsky.social S.Wolf S.Perin @mpipz.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNUf... 🧵Thread 5/5:

5/5. MetaFlowTrain confirms that specific bacterial exometabolites, not media depletion, drive microbial antagonism. 🦠 Pseudomonas R401 WT suppresses SynCom growth via known inhibitory exometabolites. ❌ A triple mutant loses inhibitory power.

4/5. MetaFlowTrain dissects inter-kingdom microbial interactions via directional exometabolite flow. 🦠 Bacterial SynComs strongly inhibit fungal growth, even without physical contact. 🚫 Up to 82% growth suppression via exometabolites.

3/5. MetaFlowTrain reveals how soil conditioning alters microbial assembly/exometabolite output. 🦠 SynComs exposed to plant-conditioned peat undergo major community shifts & consume key metabolites (α-KG, fumarate). 🌱 BF SynCom-derived exometabolites impact Arabidopsis germination & root growth.

2/5. MetaFlowTrain cultivates diverse microbes & collects their exometabolites under continuous nutrient flow. 🌱 Using sterile peat extract, we grew 11 bacterial & 4 fungal strains from the Arabidopsis root microbiota. 💥 Exometabolite profiles differed significantly by strain.

📝 Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/5. 🚂 MetaFlowTrain = 4 modular components: a. Variety of liquid inputs b. 24-channel pump enabling parallel metabolic trains c. 3D-printed gnotobiotic microchambers d. Multi-layered outputs for cell/metabolite analysis 🔗 protocols.io/view/36wgqd68ovk5/v3

🚨Excited to share our new publication! MetaFlowTrain, a highly parallelized and modular fluidic system to study exometabolite interactions between microbes-microbes-plants 🌱 @hacquardst.bsky.social @herpell.bsky.social S.Wolf S.Perin @mpipz.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNUf... 🧵Thread 5/5:

MetaFlowTrain : A Highly-Parallelized and Modular Fluidic System.

YouTube video by Guillaume Chesneau

youtube.com

We present MetaFlowTrain, an easy-to-build, highly parallelized, and cost-effective fluidic system for studying microbial exometabolites and their roles in modulating microbe–microbe–host interactions. Kudos to @chesneau-g.bsky.social @mpipz.bsky.social Give it a try: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New paper from lab- in @newphyt.bsky.social Integrating ecological and evolutionary frameworks for SynCom success. Led by @manudelbaq.bsky.social with Singh, Liu, Sáez-Sandino, Coleine, Muñoz-Rojas, Bastida, Trivedi @microsky.bsky.social nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Finally! Im so excited to present to culmination of many years of work from the fantastic Defeng Shen and some great collaborators. For details, I have made a digested thread below, but if you are more interested feel free to reach out (and read the paper of course). www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Apoplastic barriers are essential for nodule formation and nitrogen fixation in Lotus japonicus

Establishment of the apoplastic root barrier known as the Casparian strip occurs early in root development. In legumes, this area overlaps with nitrogen-fixing nodule formation, which raises the possi...

science.org

POSTDOC POSITION AVAILABLE, UV-B Perception and Signalling, Geneva, Switzerland. Deadline approaching: 24.02.2025

Roman Ulm@romanulm.bsky.social · 2y ago

POSTDOC POSITION AVAILABLE, Geneva, Switzerland - Applications are invited for a postdoc position to study UV-B perception and signalling in plants. Please apply, forward to suitable candidates, and/or repost; many thanks! Deadline February 24, 2025. See www.ulm-lab.ch for more information.

Happy to share this viewpoint, written together with @fabriceroux7.bsky.social and Fabienne Vailleau @lipme-toulouse.bsky.social nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 1/4

Building microbial synthetic communities: get inspired by the design of synthetic plant communities

In the last decade, the generation of host-associated microbial culture collections has allowed the fine disentangling of complex relationships between commensal microbes and their hosts, and within-...

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

I’m super happy to have a great part of my PhD work (under the wonderful supervision of C. Libourel @pierremarcdelaux.bsky.social & @maximebonhomme.bsky.social) now out in @naturegenet.bsky.social ! Here’s a little thread (1/18) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Marchantia polymorpha pangenome reveals ancient mechanisms of plant adaptation to the environment - Nature Genetics

Pangenome analyses of 133 wild accessions of the model bryophyte Marchantia polymorpha identify adaptive features and provide insights into the mechanisms of plant adaptation to the terrestrial enviro...

nature.com

1/6 Super excited to share with you our work on Marchantia intra-specific diversity and pan-genomics, just out @naturegenet.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... Everything on the discoveries in the thread by @chloe-beaulieu.bsky.social I want to emphasize 5 additional points:

Happy to see that our Cell wall integrity #CWI & #ATG8ylation #preprint found a home @natureplants www.nature.com/articles/s41... Congrats Jose, Peng, Alessia & everyone involved. Stay tuned for exciting updates on this story…

ATG8ylation of vacuolar membrane protects plants against cell wall damage - Nature Plants

ATG8ylation of the tonoplast, triggered by cell wall damage, acts as a vital vacuolar quality control mechanism that safeguards vacuolar integrity and ensures cell survival under stress.

nature.com

New year, new paper! Now published in @nature.com. We identified and characterised diverse immune cell states in plants under pathogen attack. My postdoc work in the Ecker lab at @salkinstitute.bsky.social. A thread (0/n) #PlantScience www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Happy to share our Tansley insight published in @newphyt.bsky.social nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.... #plantscience #chromosome #centromere #meiosis