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...

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 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...

Plants interact with a plethora of organisms in the rhizosphere, with outcomes that range from detrimental to beneficial. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis is the most ubiquitous beneficial plant ...

Combining fossil-based and molecular calibrations with data on horizontal gene transfer events, the authors develop a time-calibrated phylogeny of Fungi. This timescale, which integrates analytic uncertainties, suggests an older age of crown Fungi (1,401–896 million years ago), as well as a minimum age for ancient interactions involving fungi and the algal ancestors of embryophytes in terrestrial ecosystems (1,253–797 Ma).

Abstract. The liverwort Marchantia polymorpha is a widely used model organism for studying land plant biology, which has also proven to be a promising test

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

A super-pangenome analysis incorporating 123 newly sequenced bryophyte genomes reveals that bryophytes exhibit a larger number of unique and lineage-specific gene families than vascular plants.

A super-pangenome analysis incorporating 123 newly sequenced bryophyte genomes reveals that bryophytes exhibit a larger number of unique and lineage-specific gene families than vascular plants.

A key feature of extant conifer forests is the high percentage of seeds that germinate and establish on dead wood; in some forests, this can exceed 90%. This deadwood can act as an ideal nursery for...