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Juliet Coates
@julietccoates.bsky.social
Mum, Plant Science 🌱, Biology, Inclusion, Social Justice, Neurodiversity, Wellbeing 💚. Compassionate & trauma-informed education. Delivers consultancy & training based on the nervous system & biology of behaviour. She/her. No DMs - LinkedIn/work email pls.
Avocados come in 2 varieties - A-types start each day female and switch to male midday. B-types do the reverse. In work just published from the last chapter of my PhD, we show this system evolved 40+million yrs ago and is regulated by alleles of 1 transcription factor www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Balanced polymorphism in a floral transcription factor underlies the ancient rhythm of daily sex alternation in avocado | PNAS
In avocado and certain wild relatives in Lauraceae, a highly synchronized daily rhythm of floral sex timing promotes cross-pollination between two ...
pnas.org
New preprint: In collaboration with @yorgsvicen.bsky.social we show metacaspase9 and ATE N-degron pathway-dependent proteoform stability act to diversify UBP6 function during plant immunity www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Functional diversification of UBP6 in plant immunity through N‑degron pathway regulation
Deubiquitylases are key proteolytic regulators of ubiquitin-dependent cellular processes, catalyzing the removal or remodelling of ubiquitin modifications on substrate proteins, including those target...
biorxiv.org
Different sets of 3D printable test tube racks for Eppendorf, 15mL Falcon and 50mL Falcon tubes - useful point of reference with nice clean designs (from uranium235) makerworld.com/en/collectio...
I learned a lovely thing yesterday: a group of brittle stars (either fossilised or dancing very slowly in a Devon rockpool) is called …a galaxy:
Wow. Amazing work #Seaweeds
Jonas Blomme@jonasblomme.bsky.social · 3w agoExcited to share our latest preprint on #PhycologyFriday. We map out the carbon fixation pathway for the first time in a multicellular alga, the green seaweed Ulva, and reveal a unique Rubisco-Linker interaction in the pyrenoid, a chloroplast condensate. Below I summarize some key points. #seaweeds
Excited to share our latest preprint on #PhycologyFriday. We map out the carbon fixation pathway for the first time in a multicellular alga, the green seaweed Ulva, and reveal a unique Rubisco-Linker interaction in the pyrenoid, a chloroplast condensate. Below I summarize some key points. #seaweeds
bioRxiv Cell Biology@biorxiv-cellbio.bsky.social · 3w agoA spatial atlas of the seaweed CO2-fixation machinery reveals a unique Rubisco condensation mechanism https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.16.738900v1
The theme for this week’s #wildflowerhour challenge is wetland plants. So have a mosey in your local marsh, mire, bog, fen and see what you can find! Share your pics this Sunday 8-9pm using #wetlandplants #InternationalBogDay2026
CRISPR-mediated centromere fission generates neochromosomes with distorted meiotic inheritance in Arabidopsis biorxiv.org/content/10.6... new preprint from us - includes changing the Arabidopsis karyotype from 5 -> 6 chromosomes using Cas9 & outcomes of 5/6 chromosome hybrid meiosis
Extreme cooling enables survival in extreme heat https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.22.740203v1
Excited to share this story in its final form, now published in ACS Synthetic Biology. #PlantBiology #Synbio pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...
Engineering Auronidin Production in Marchantia polymorpha Enables a New Class of Plant-Derived Textile Pigments
Plant-derived pigments offer sustainable alternatives to synthetic colorants, yet their practical deployment in textiles is limited by restricted chemical diversity and low abundance. Liverworts represent a source of diverse chemical compounds, and the model liverworts Marchantia polymorpha are emerging as chassis for bioengineering and synthetic biology. Here, we report the biotechnological application of auronidins, a rare class of flavonoid pigments, as textile dyes. Using M. polymorpha, we engineered enhanced auronidin production through controlled expression of the R2R3-MYB transcription factor MpMYB14. We systematically benchmarked constitutive and inducible gene expression systems, including heat-shock, glucocorticoid receptor, and β-estradiol (XVE) circuits, identifying inducible strategies that decouple biomass accumulation from secondary metabolite production while achieving high pigment yields. Extracted auronidins were used to dye cotton yarn directly, demonstrating the feasibility of auronidins for textile dyeing. Our results establish M. polymorpha as a versatile plant chassis for programmable secondary metabolite production and introduce auronidins as a promising natural pigment platform for sustainable textile biotechnology.
pubs.acs.org
Facundo Romani@fromani.bsky.social · 6mo agoMarchantia might seem an unlikely biotech crop, but it’s worth trying. In Aurore’s thesis, we pushed this concept by engineering the auronidins with MpMYB14 and using the pigments to dye cotton. It ended up giving a very unique and beautiful product. #PlantScience www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
New pre-print. Biosynthesis of limonene in Marchantia is carried out by a small biosynthetic gene cluster specific to oil body cells #PlantScience www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Neryl diphosphate-derived monoterpene biosynthesis via a biosynthetic gene cluster in the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha
Monoterpenes (C10) are a large group of specialized metabolites important for plant interactions with the environment. Their biosynthesis is well understood in seed plants, where geranyl diphosphate s...
biorxiv.org
Happy to share our latest work exploring the impact of transgenesis on the Camelina seed proteome, out today in @plantbiotechj.bsky.social doi.org/10.1111/pbi.... Short 🧵
Assessing the Impact of Multigene Engineering on the Proteome: Omega‐3 Camelina as a Case Study
Click on the article title to read more.
doi.org
New preprint out 🌱 We present a new T-DNA vector system for Arabidopsis that supports clean, genomically mapped, single-copy T-DNA insertion with predictable cell-type/conditional gene expression. @mokhalil.bsky.social + Gehring labs biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵1/16
Rational design of T-DNA vectors enables predictable, single-copy integration in Arabidopsis thaliana
Agrobacterium-mediated transformation is the dominant method for plant transgenesis, yet it frequently produces multi-copy, structurally complex T-DNA insertions associated with transgene silencing, u...
biorxiv.org
Help me out folks with this one @wildflowerhour.bsky.social is it Alexanders? South West England, coastal cliff. #WildFlowerHour #Seaside not quite #AquaticPlants. #KebleMartin
Shoutout for #WildFlowerHour to @silverpebble2.bsky.social who sent me some absolutely gorgeous cards this week 🌸🌿🌺🌼🌻🌷 @wildflowerhour.bsky.social
Since it's #AquaticPlants let’s include some fab #Seaweed that we work on in the lab too #Ulva #beach #WildFlowerHour 🌱🔬🥼
Here's a comparison of techniques for table-top propagation of the liverwort Marchantia - best model plant for engineering!Trying to properly collate tha last few years of development trials in Cambridge. Adding DIY instructions. https://marchantia.org/technique
Instructions for building the latest Mini-NFT hydroponics system for Marchantia. USB powered pod with self-contained media circulation and LED lighting. Based on GN1/6 kitchen vessel. Larger scale DIY hydroponic systems on the way. https://marchantia.org/mini-nft-hydroponics
I finished the next batch of instructions for DIY construction of 'grow-pods' for simple and improved hydroponic cultivation of Marchantia liverwort plants - needing to adjust for their lack root systems, so using specialised trays and membranes for fast growth (marchantia.org)
There are three different size systems (mini, midi, super) to cope with different scales, up to about a kilogram of fresh weight of liverwort per tray for the super size. Can take plants through the entire life cycle - great for plant spore production.
Marchantia plants grown on a large Super-NFT grow-pod using micro-perforated plastic film to supress algal growth, while rhizoids penetrate the support membrane and feed off nutrients flowing below. Grow healthily for months on a tabletop for spore production (marchantia.org)
Instructions have full assembly details including custom 3D files and details of sources for off-the-shelf components. Also details of background trials at marchantia.org
Also I've pulled together details of the low-cost LED lighting systems that have been integrated into the three different self-contained grow-pods. Might be useful for other plant and algal growing systems. Can be found at Marchantia.org
This is huge. #CleanAirForAll
Clinically Vulnerable Families 💙💜💗@cvcev.bsky.social · last mo.🚨 2 *HUGE* WINS for children's health have just been written into DfE statutory guidance - and the media didn't notice them! If your child is Clinically Vulnerable due to asthma or allergies, this changes what you can demand from their school. 1/🧵 www.clinicallyvulnerable.org/post/allergy...