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Land plants include angiosperms, gymnosperms, bryophytes, lycophytes, and ferns, each of which may deploy distinct strategies to resist pathogens. Here, we investigate fern-pathogen interactions by characterizing novel pathosystems and analyzing the diversity of fern immune receptors. A collection of fern species was inoculated with a diverse set of filamentous microbes, and disease symptoms were assessed. We further leveraged published genome mining tools to analyse the diversity of receptor-like kinases, receptor-like proteins (RLKs/RLPs) and nucleotide-binding and leucine-rich repeats (NLRs), along with key immune signalling components, in ferns. Our results reveal that ferns exhibit a range of responses to pathogens, including putative non-host resistance and more specific resistance mechanisms. Among ten ferns tested, Pteris vittata displays the broadest spectrum of pathogen compatibility. Genome mining indicates that ferns encode a diverse repertoire of putative immune receptors, antimicrobial peptides, and mediators of systemic acquired resistance. Ferns possess numerous RLKs/RLPs, resembling those required for cell-surface immunity in angiosperms. They also encode diverse NLRs, including sub-families lost in flowering plants. These findings provide insights into disease resistance evolution and open promising perspectives for crop protection strategies.

The fossil record demonstrates that filamentous microbes invaded ancient plant cells with intracellular hyphal structures over 450 million years ago. To this day, a rich diversity of extant land plant...

Nature Plants - This study reveals that plant proteins MAIL1, MAIN and MAIL2 function as anti-silencing factors that maintain active gene expression. They bind specific DNA motifs to prevent...

The success of plants on land has been enabled by mutualistic intracellular associations with microbes for 450 million years ([Delaux and Schornack 2021][1]). Because of their intracellular nature, th...

DNA methylation loss at transposable elements (TEs) can affect neighboring genes and be epigenetically inherited in plants, yet the determinants and significance of this additional system of inheritan...

DNA methylation loss at transposable elements (TEs) can affect neighboring genes and be epigenetically inherited in plants, yet the determinants and significance of this additional system of inheritan...

Job #AJO30607, WDR-00055221 Assistant Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, US

Genomic imprinting, the preferential expression of alleles based on their parent-of-origin, is an epigenetic mechanism that plays a key role in endosp…

Advances in genome engineering have paved the way for targeted epigenome engineering, providing fundamental insights into the role of epigenetic modifications in trait inheritance. Engineered epialleles have already delivered stable, heritable changes in agronomic traits. Despite this capacity, progress in the field has not yet achieved its potential, leaving many avenues of research unexplored. In this review we examine the factors influencing this progress, including the advances in current epigenome editing techniques, the key research goals and translational applications, and the challenges in the selection of ideal target loci. We propose that improved tools for the selection of target loci, particularly in large and complex genomes, are needed to propel the field forward.