What makes a plant killer lose its edge? This project will investigate why fungal pathogens lose virulence when they are grown in laboratory culture away from their host plant. Use cutting-edge…

The blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae infects plants using a specialised infection structure called an appressorium that generates physical force to break the rice leaf cuticle. Appressorium development...

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...

Plants secrete a variety of proteases as a defense response during infection by microbial pathogens. However, the relationship between their catalytic activities and antimicrobial functions remains la...

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Protein ubiquitination regulates cell biology through diverse avenues, from quality control-linked protein degradation to signaling functions such as modulating protein-protein interactions and enzyme...

Abstract. Age and sex have been found to be important determinants of the mutation rate per generation in mammals, but the mechanisms underlying these fact

Plants deploy receptor-like cytoplasmic kinases (RLCKs) and the immune hub protein RIN4 to coordinate PAMPs-triggered immunity (PTI). Here, we show that BIK1, but not its close homolog PBL1, dynamical...

Plants deploy a diverse array of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), which perceive microbe-associated molecular patterns to activate immune responses. Leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinase subgr...

Plant cells are totipotent, meaning individual cells have the potential to develop into a full organism, a property unique to the zygote for animals. However, in most species for most cells, plant cells are not spontaneously totipotent, since they must be treated with specific hormone combinations to unlock their totipotency. Species within the Kalanchoe genus is unique as they spontaneously develop foliar embryos that are fully realized plantlets with shoot and root from notches along the edges of leaves. We speculate that the progenitor cells that give rise to these foliar embryos are totipotent, and we are using single cell techniques to identify & characterize them. In addition to being a fundamental process for plant biology, we foresee unlocking totipotency has many biotechnological applications, such as faciliating genetic transformation and the development of synthetic organs of biomanufacturing.

Abstract. Horizontal gene transfers (HGT) have been observed across the tree of life. While their adaptive importance in bacteria is conspicuous, the occur