Honour McCann
@honour.bsky.social
Max Planck Research Group Leader // Plant pathogen emergence and evolution // http://instagram.com/honourmccann // Opinions my own etc
Strains from the clove-infecting lineage grow more slowly than the banana infecting ones and are only found at higher elevations. Since we were under some time pressure to get them onto plates as early as possible to inform later sampling decisions, we sampled at nightfall and processed that night.
After a long drive into Central Java, we set up the mobile lab in the plantation office
Within four days of landing lab HQ was set up, hundreds of plates were poured and we were in the field sampling for Ralstonia on clove.
Lab HQ for this trip is in the brand new Agrotropica Learning Center at UGM 👌
Landed in Indonesia to continue the hunt for Ralstonia syzygii! After piles of paperwork, the real work begins..
Preprint alert! It is my great pleasure to announce the first manuscript from the lab, a story that started @gmivienna.bsky.social and was mainly accomplished by the intrepid @gesahoffmann.bsky.social at @mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social. A brief thread with our findings www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
AGO5 restricts virus vertical transmission in plant gametophytes
The propagation of a viral infection from a host parent to its progeny is known as vertical transmission, or seed transmission in plants. It allows viral infections to rapidly spread locally via polle...
biorxiv.org
What is the best strategy to win any contest? Eliminate your opponents of course. Recently, my friend @fernpizza.bsky.social showed how plasmids compete intracellularly (check out his paper published in Science today!). With @baym.lol, we now know they can fight. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Presenting Dr. Daria Evseeva! Daria defended her thesis at @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social last week and earned her doctorate - with distinction! She worked on a historic outbreak of Ralstonia in Martinique, the origins of the banana outbreak in Indonesia, and the evolution of intermicrobial antagonism.
I will be so chalant when they tell me off for snacking in the new lecture hall 😅😂
Sheila Roitman@sheilaroitman.bsky.social · 9mo ago@honour.bsky.social casually having a snack while presenting her work on Ralstonia wars. As nonchalant as it gets 😎
There’s a leak - and a conceptual artist - at the Max Planck 👌
It was an amazing sciences day at #2025ISMPMI! Right after the “Population, biology, ecology and genomics” session, I had the opportunity to have lunch and discuss about this topic with the co-chair @honour.bsky.social
#phagesky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Identifying phage proteins that activate the bacterial innate immune system
Bacteria have evolved sophisticated antiphage systems that halt phage replication upon detecting specific phage triggers. Identifying phage triggers is crucial to our understanding of immune signaling...
biorxiv.org
Our paper demonstrating that within-species warfare interactions are ecologically important on human skin is now published in Nature Micro! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Intraspecies warfare restricts strain coexistence in human skin microbiomes - Nature Microbiology
About 15,000 pairwise interactions within S. epidermidis from 18 people in 6 families reveal the antagonism and molecular trade-offs that shape the skin microbiota.
nature.com
Chris Mancuso@mancusosci.bsky.social · 2y agoWhy don’t people who live together have the same strains of microbes? Tami Lieberman (@contaminatedsci.bsky.social) and I put forward one underexplored reason in our new preprint: Intraspecies warfare restricts strain coexistence in human skin microbiomes
One of my favourite serendipitous results from the lab came about because we were long-read sequencing bacterial: Vibrio cholerae, which is "supposed to" have TWO circular chromosomes (3 + 1 million base pairs) often has just ONE fused chromosome (4 Mbp). www.nature.com/articles/s41... (1/n)
Prevalent chromosome fusion in Vibrio cholerae O1 - Nature Communications
The pathogenic bacterium Vibrio cholerae typically has two circular chromosomes. Here, Cuénod et al. analyse 467 clinical isolates and identify several independent chromosome fusion events that are li...
nature.com
Cell-type-specific execution of effector-triggered immunity Our new preprint is online, 1 July⬇️ With @himanshuchhillar.bsky.social @leonardojo.bsky.social Amey Redkar @kaisakajala.bsky.social @jonathandgjones.bsky.social For early readers & community feedback🙏🏼 #openscience @erc.europa.eu
bioRxiv Plant Bio@biorxiv-plants.bsky.social · last yr.Cell-type-specific execution of effector-triggered immunity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.28.662111v1
Black Forest Lab Retreat! Great hikes, exploding kittens* and milk-washed cocktails. *The card game
This is what a multi-floor meeting looks like at the @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social. Love a good science lobby 😁
New Paper out! apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/epdf/10.... We wanted to know how much genetic variation exists for Zymoseptoria in a single wheat field.
Zymoseptoria tritici Show Local Differences in Within-Field Diversity and Effector Variation
apsjournals.apsnet.org
Congratulations to @hassansalem.bsky.social on the #ERC Consolidator Grant! 🎉 The project explores how beetles use symbiotic relationships w/ microbes to digest plant material, & compare this to gene transfer for digestive enzyme acquisition. 🪲tinyurl.com/bdhrdnes Evolutionary insights to come!
ERC Consolidator Grant for Hassan Salem
Max Planck Research Group Leader Hassan Salem has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant to investigate how beetles use symbiotic relationships with microbes to digest plant material and how this stra...
tinyurl.com
📢 Excited to share our work out now in @nature.com! 📢 We present the phased pan-genome of tetraploid European potato, based on 10 historical cultivars representing 85% of European potato diversity. Learn more below! 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/7
The phased pan-genome of tetraploid European potato - Nature
A haplotype-resolved pan-genome of autotetraploid European potato founder lines shows high nucleotide diversity at remarkably low haplotype diversity, which is probably the result of hybridization eve...
nature.com
Pseudomonas syringae secretes the iminosugar glycosyrin to block plant immune recognition. It mimics galactose to inhibit β-galactosidase, disrupt flagellin sensing, and rewire host glycobiology! doi.org/10.1126/scie... Huge congrats to Tee and everyone involved! #PlantImmunity #PlantChemeticsLab
Bacterial pathogen deploys the iminosugar glycosyrin to manipulate plant glycobiology
The extracellular space (apoplast) in plants is a key battleground during microbial infections. To avoid recognition, the bacterial model phytopathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 produces ...
doi.org
New postdoc position in our lab (2 y+): evolutionary genomics of integrons and MGEs with focus on vibrio-phage interactions. Great environment @pasteur.fr for science, career building. Super collaborators @celineloot.bsky.social @amazeld.bsky.social @fredoleroux.bsky.social 3 weeks to apply!
It was a great honor to give a seminar yesterday @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social. Thanks for inviting me and for all the great & stimulating chats I had throughout the day! So inspiring to learn about the newest research done in the Ley lab, and on the S-layer and on plant pathogens ! #microsky
Honour McCann@honour.bsky.social · last yr.The classic Tübingen photo 😄 @olayarendueles.bsky.social visited the @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social and told us about the impact of extracellular polysaccharide on phage and plasmid-mediated HGT 👌
The classic Tübingen photo 😄 @olayarendueles.bsky.social visited the @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social and told us about the impact of extracellular polysaccharide on phage and plasmid-mediated HGT 👌
Applications due this Friday 3/21/25 for a one-week, hands-on summer school on Quantitative Phage-Bacteria Dynamics Across Scales at the U of Maryland, June 23-27, 2025. Travel awards available & no fee for participants. Open to MS/PhD/Postdocs, space is limited. Apply: bit.ly/phageschool2...
Joshua Weitz@joshuasweitz.bsky.social · last yr.Reminder: application deadline upcoming for applications from MS + PhD students + postdocs for a Summer School on Quantitative Phage-Bacteria Dynamics Across Scales U of Maryland, College Park, June 23-27, 2025 Apply by 3/21/25: bit.ly/phageschool2...
This has been in the works for a while, and is not a response to recent events, but the timing couldn't be better: Canada now allows foreign students and postdocs to apply for more doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships! www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/NewsDetail-D...
NSERC - Latest News - Launch of the new Harmonized Tri-agency Scholarship and Fellowship programs
As announced in Budget 2024, the scholarship and fellowship programs administered by the three federal research funding agencies – the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) – have been streamlined into a new harmonized talent program called the Canada Research Training Awards Suite (CRTAS) that will open for applications in summer 2025.
nserc-crsng.gc.ca
We have a 2-year postdoc position available in the Lind Lab at Umeå University, Sweden! Predicting and steering experimental evolution of antibiotic resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Reposts appreciated. umu.varbi.com/en/?jobtoken...
Postdoctor, 2 years, in predicting the evolution of antibiotic resistance
The Department of Molecular Biology seeks a postdoctoral researcher who will work with forecasting and steering experimental evolution of antibiotic resistance. The employment is full-time for two yea
umu.varbi.com
I'm delighted to announce that the 2025 @microbiologysociety.org meeting on "Understanding and predicting microbial evolutionary dynamics" will be held in Liverpool 26-27 November 2025! Abstract submission will open soon... #microsky 🧪🧫🦠 microbiologysociety.org/event/societ...
Understanding and predicting microbial evolutionary dynamics - 2025 meeting
microbiologysociety.org
Abstract submission for @ismpmi.bsky.social Cologne 2025 closes tomorrow night 🍃 bit.ly/41PQBBf
Abstracts
Abstract Submission...Abstract submission deadline: 11 March, 23:59 EDT. Start Submission Submission GuidelinesImportant Considerations Before You Submit an AbstractEdit and proof your abstract...
bit.ly
Honour McCann@honour.bsky.social · last yr.Using genomics to explore the ecology and evolution of plant-associated microbial populations and communities? 🌿 Submit an abstract by March 11 and join us in Cologne this July for #ISMPMI2025! We serve cool science + cold German beer 🍻 Join the party: buff.ly/uqEfN6O
