@loreament.bsky.social & Saupe suggest that fungal NOD-like receptors evolve under diversity-enhancing mechanisms and display selective signatures consistent with a general immune function. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/... #societyjournal #genome #evolution

NOD-Like Receptor Genes Undergo Diversity-Enhancing Evolution in a Fungal Species Complex

Abstract. Fungi harbor diverse arrays of genes encoding NOD-like receptors (NLRs), key intracellular immune proteins found in plants, animals, and bacteria

doi.org

Super happy to finally share our preprint with the community! 🎉 Fungal extracellular vesicles deliver RNA cargo into host cells - but how do they get through the plant cell wall? This question puzzled us and the field for years… 🧵 1/6

Virulent strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa are more disruptive during invasion of a microbial model community #THoR #SynCom FEMS Microbiology Letter by Emil Burman, Mikkel Anbo, @larsjelsbak.bsky.social and Johan Bengtsson-Palme academic.oup.com/femsle/advan...

Virulent strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa are more disruptive during invasion of a microbial model community

Abstract. Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a major opportunistic pathogen involved in cystic fibrosis and many nosocomial infections, exhibits strong competitive ab

academic.oup.com

Nature did a short piece on our preprint about how LLMs will affect the practice of science; my more detailed thread is below.

Scientists using LLMs will ‘do more, less well’, modelling study predicts

Research suggests that the combination of incentives to publish and the use of large language models will lead to more papers, but they will be less refined.

nature.com

Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 3w ago

1. We—@eduede.bsky.social, @mjcrockett.bsky.social, Kevin Gross, and I—have a new preprint on the arXiv today, based on ideas that emerged during an @sfiscience.bsky.social workshop in November 2024: The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science.

New GreenRobust publication by the group of Eric Kemen on using machine learning to identify beneficial microbiota: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Machine learning reveals biocontrol agents shaping disease outcome in natural Arabidopsis populations - Nature Communications

Plants can recruit beneficial microbes to suppress pathogens, offering a route to rational biocontrol beyond empirical screening. Here, the authors use machine learning to identify disease-associated ...

nature.com

📣 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 👇

How do bacteria recognize fungal competitors? @cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social by Lingfang Zhu (朱玲芳), Changfu Li (李长富), Xihui Shen (沈锡辉) www.cell.com/trends/micro...

How do bacteria recognize fungal competitors?

Bacterial–fungal interactions (BFIs) are central to microbial community dynamics in diverse ecosystems, with profound implications for medicine, agriculture, and environmental microbiology. A critical...

cell.com

Microbial chitinases perform functions beyond antagonism, including facilitating host colonization by interfering with chitin-triggered immunity. We review evidence that their diversification reflects adaptation to distinct host-associated ecological niches. academic.oup.com/femsre/artic...

I'm getting more requests for gift authorship lately. Complete with a written MS and a request to just add my name or to provide minor comments to add me as a co-author. Please don't do this. Authorship should reflect substantial intellectual contributions and shared responsibility for the work.

Happy to see that AMAPEC helps to get novel insights into lichen biology and evolution!

Björn Usadel@usadellab.bsky.social · 2mo ago

5/8 But there is more lichens as an untapped antimicrobial reservoir? ~306 antimicrobial candidate proteins per genome on average. Profiles are species-specific and remarkably stable, with lineage-specific expansions and the tripartite species carry the biggest catalogues.

So proud to see this story finally out!🎉 We added new data since our previous preprint—transgenic barley plants with an engineered immune receptor that fights off two fungal pathogens at once. Short 🧵 and link to the original preprint thread on X👇 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Molecular mimicry of a pathogen virulence target by a plant immune receptor

Plants and animals respond to pathogen attack by mounting innate immune responses that require intracellular nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) proteins. These immune receptors detect pathog...

science.org

Excited to share our latest study with @nicksnelders.bsky.social and @teamthomma.bsky.social! We uncover the mode of action of the V. dahliae antimicrobial effector Ave1 and show that it binds LTA and disrupts bacterial membranes 🦠 www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

geneML: Gene annotation across diverse fungal species using deep learning https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.18.725946v1

"Academic science is not only about productivity, it is also about deep understanding, exploring creative solutions and training critical thinkers to be the next generation of researchers. Now is the time for the scientific community to evaluate whether AI products help or hinder these endeavours."

The model alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii forms mutualistic interactions with Verticillium fungi https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.20.726472v1

Emma Turley started her PhD expecting the effector ChEC108 would aid Colletotrichum establish infection, but she instead discovered that when it makes it's way to plasmodesmata it's bound by host HIPP6, triggering PD closure and impeding infection. #PlantScience

bioRxiv Plant Bio@biorxiv-plants.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Colletotrichum higginsianum effector ChEC108 binds a plasmodesmal HMA protein and elicits plant defence https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.19.726166v1

Thrilled to see this finally out!! Our new work suggests #Starships helped #Colletotrichum acquire the genes needed to infect lupin. A glimpse into how fungal pathogens emerge through horizontal transfer and genome reshaping. biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #Fungi #Genomics #Pathogenicity #evolution

Bacteria evolving to survive the soil battleground 🦠🛡️ Super glad I got to be part of this fascinating study, led by my friend @jinyi-zhu.bsky.social, who’s equally impressive in the lab and at the gym 💪

Jinyi Zhu@jinyi-zhu.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Fungi deploy antimicrobial proteins (AMPs) to compete with microbes, including bacteria. But can bacteria fight back? We @teamthomma.bsky.social found that some AMP-sensitive bacteria can repress AMP deployment, suggesting an unrecognized bacterial–fungal arms race. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Fungi deploy antimicrobial proteins (AMPs) to compete with microbes, including bacteria. But can bacteria fight back? We @teamthomma.bsky.social found that some AMP-sensitive bacteria can repress AMP deployment, suggesting an unrecognized bacterial–fungal arms race. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🌱 A research team led by @teamthomma.bsky.social has discovered the surprising evolutionary origin of fungal "effector proteins": molecules that pathogens use today to infect their hosts appear to have evolved from ancient antimicrobial proteins.

Universität zu Köln@unicologne.bsky.social · 3mo ago

🌱 Forschungsteam um @teamthomma.bsky.social hat den überraschenden evolutionären Ursprung pilzlicher „Effektorproteine“ entdeckt: Moleküle, die Krankheitserreger heute zur Infektion ihrer Wirte nutzen, scheinen sich aus uralten antimikrobiellen Proteinen entwickelt zu haben. ➡️ uni.koeln/YN6YA

🍂🌱 An international research team led by @teamthomma.bsky.social has discovered the surprising evolutionary origin of fungal effector proteins: molecules that pathogens use today to infect their hosts appear to have evolved from ancient antimicrobial proteins. More: ➡️ uni.koeln/UCMWQ #UniCologne

Fungi utilize ancient antimicrobial proteins to attack hosts and their microbiomes

A team of plant researchers at the University of Cologne decodes a key infection strategy of fungal pathogens. Significant findings for disease control, plant protection and food security as well as f...

uni.koeln

🎉 📰 Very happy to share the journal publication of our manuscript "Plant-associated fungi co-opt ancient antimicrobials for host manipulation"! #ScienceAdvancesResearch @science.org @teamthomma.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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

Fungal effectors may have evolved from ancient antimicrobials, shaping plant microbiota and immunity during infection.

science.org

So diverse and yet conserved. Check out opinion paper by Leonhard Pachinger @leopach.bsky.social on antimicrobial effectors produced by fungal pathogens: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Antimicrobial effectors of plant-associated fungi: multipurpose proteins with fast-evolving surfaces and structurally conserved cores

Plants are exposed to a variety of devastating pathogens, causing significant yearly yield losses. In order to facilitate infections, plant pathogens …

sciencedirect.com

Thrilled to share our paper now out in Nature Plants 🎉 We developed a genome-host association (GHA) approach to study pathogen adaptation directly from field metadata by using the originating host cultivar as phenotype. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Genome–host association mapping reveals wheat pathogen genes involved in host specialization - Nature Plants

This study introduces genome–host association (GHA), leveraging natural epidemics to map the genetic landscape of host adaptation in the pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici. Applied to 832 wheat fungal stra...

nature.com

Now out! We show that TEs can be horizontally transferred between fungal species via Starships. Once transferred, these TEs can become active, changing the genome organization and affecting the lifestyle of the recipient fungus. www.nature.com/articles/s41... @oggenfussursula.bsky.social #TEsky

Transposable elements hitchhike on Starships across fungal genomes - Nature Communications

Large mobile genetic elements known as Starships act as vehicles for transferring transposable elements (TEs) between fungi. Here, Griem-Krey et al. show that these ‘hitchhiking’ TEs can drive rapid e...

nature.com

Drought drives elevated antibiotic resistance across soils @natmicrobiol.nature.com from Dianne Newman with @hannahjeckel.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Drought drives elevated antibiotic resistance across soils - Nature Microbiology

Drought conditions in soil systems lead to elevated concentrations of natural antibiotics, as well as the enrichment of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms, highlighting a link between climate and the...

nature.com

The finding could offer hope that gut-targeted therapies could reverse cognitive decline go.nature.com/40vgODK

Memory loss is fuelled by gut microbes in ageing mice

Nature - If confirmed in people, the finding might lead to gut-targeted therapies that could reverse cognitive decline.

go.nature.com

Pleased to finally share this fun collab that began at #Ento23 @cedricaumont.bsky.social presented & I had seen NCBI annotated some cockroach genomes as "contaminated." Turns out NCBI & I were wrong (much more fun). Horizontal transfer of an #AntimicrobialPeptide across insects bit.ly/DrsHGT 1/🧵

Predicting protein-protein interactions (PPIs) at proteome scale can take months with co-folding models due to the massive all-vs-all comparisons required. We are excited to announce FlashPPI, a contrastive learning framework that predicts proteome wide physical interfaces in minutes. 1/🧵

Online now: Deconstructing host quality offers insight into disease ecology

Deconstructing host quality offers insight into disease ecology

Disease risk varies among ecological communities because species differ in their host quality, that is, their contribution to parasite fitness. We propose a four-component framework of host quality that harmonizes terminology across plant and animal domains. Using this framework, we demonstrate how the host defense strategies of resistance and tolerance relate to distinct components of host quality. Easily extendable to multi-parasite systems, the framework also helps to identify new ways of examining the continuum between specialist and generalist parasites. Ultimately, breaking down and formalizing the components of host quality helps with synthesizing disease ecology across domains and unlocking relationships between biodiversity and disease risk.

dlvr.it