Altegoerlab

A screenshot of the "Making Fungal-Photobiont Symbioses in the Lab: Past, Present, and Future of the Elusive in Vitro Lichen" by Arseniy Belosokhov and Toby Spribille published in Annual Review of Microbiology, Volume 79, 2025. Link: https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-micro-051524-031834

#Lichens form their complex thalli through a partnership involving at least a fungus and an alga. But can these living structures be rebuilt in vitro? For more than a century, people have tried. With @spribille.bsky.social we revisited 150 years of #lichen #resynthesis to ask: has anyone succeeded?

Genomic and phenotypic insights into the expanding phylogenetic landscape of the Cryptococcus genus Author summary Cryptococcus is a genus of fungi that includes both pathogenic species capable of causing life-threatening infections in humans and many environmental species that inhabit soil, fruit, ...

Genomic and phenotypic insights into the expanding phylogenetic landscape of the Cryptococcus genus journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

New publication by Juan Carlos De la Concepcion, Nick Irwin, & @plantophagy.bsky.social at the GMI from @oeaw.bsky.social revealed that Exo70 undergoes changes in electrostatic charge, causing it to break from its original complex & take on new functions.

Read more: www.oeaw.ac.at/gmi/detail/n...

Undermining the cry for help: the phytopathogenic fungus Verticillium dahliae secretes an antimicrobial effector protein to undermine host recruitment of antagonistic Pseudomonas bacteria During pathogen attack, plants recruit beneficial microbes in a ‘cry for help’ to mitigate disease development. Simultaneously, pathogens secrete effectors to promote host colonisation through vario...

📣 Now announcing the journal publication 📄 of our work in @newphyt.bsky.social on how Verticillium undermines the plant's 🌱 "cry for help": terrific work by @antonkraege.bsky.social & @wolki95.bsky.social doi.org/10.1111/nph....

📣 I’m excited to share two open positions in my lab @leibniz-hki.de. For this interdisciplinary project with @luziagyr.bsky.social, I’m seeking (1) an enthusiastic PhD student interested in fungal natural product research and genetic engineering, as well as (2) a technical assistant 👇🏻

Structural basis of T-loop–independent recognition and activation of CDKs by the CDK-activating kinase Cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) are prototypical regulators of the cell cycle. The CDK-activating kinase (CAK) acts as a master regulator of CDK activity by catalyzing the activating phosphorylation o...

Now out in Science! Cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) are key regulators of the cell cycle. In @vcushing.bsky.social's magnum opus, we use #cryoEM to figure out how the CDK-activating kinase recognises CDKs to fully activate them - a key step in cell cycle control.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

📣 New @biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social preprint, another joint-venture of @wolki95.bsky.social & @antonkraege.bsky.social, co-directed by @nicksnelders.bsky.social. Here’s a 🧵

A human cell-free translation screen identifies the NT-2 mycotoxin as a ribosomal peptidyl transferase inhibitor Translation inhibitors are invaluable for probing ribosome function and therapeutic applications, but systematic discovery in human systems is limited by the lack of scalable, screening-compatible cel...

🚀 New preprint!
We used a human cell-free translation screen (~28 000 compounds) to discover NT-2, a #Fusarium -derived #mycotoxin that blocks human ribosomes.
#Cryo-EM at 1.72 Å reveals a link between chemical inhibition and ribosome dormancy.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Synchronous spatio-temporal control of autophagy and organelle trafficking is necessary for appressorium-mediated plant infection by Magnaporthe oryzae 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...

I’m excited to share our new preprint from @talbotlabtsl.bsky.social lab!
🌱 Our latest study reveals how Magnaporthe oryzae synchronizes organelle trafficking and autophagy to infect plants. (1/13)
📄 Read more: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Vanishing Virulence: Investigating pathogenicity loss in a plant pathogenic fungus (TALBOT_T26DTP) | Doctoral Training Partnership 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…

New PhD opportunity in my group @thesainsburylab.bsky.social through the BBSRC NRP DTP Programme - see details of host to apply below

biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/projects/van...

A secreted citrus protease cleaves an outer membrane protein of the Huanglongbing pathogen 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...

1/13 Thankfully, both you and your plants have a lot of sophisticated ways to fight off invading pathogens.
In our new preprint, we describe a new way in which animals and plants share a common strategy to ward off harmful bacteria.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

SALICYLIC ACID SENSOR1 reveals the propagation of an SA hormone surge during plant pathogen advance Salicylic acid (SA) is a key phytohormone that orchestrates immune responses against pathogens, including Pseudomonas syringae bacteria. The timing and extent of SA accumulation are tightly controlled...

FRET sensor for SA developed. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Fran @frangordilloc.bsky.social and I wrote this piece on one of our favorite topics: the evolutionary relevance of co-receptors for immune receptor transfer in #plants 🌱
#EvoMPMI #MPMI

Check also the beautiful paper by Zhang et al. on the PRR STOMR and discover what happened to its co-receptor 😱

Please RT:
We have an opening for a junior group leader position in „Phage Biology & Biotechnology“.
www.fz-juelich.de/de/karriere/...

Interested candidates are encouraged to contact me via email for further details.

@spp2330.bsky.social; @mibinet.bsky.social

Diurnal rhythm causes metabolic crises in the cyanobacterial mutants of c-di-AMP signaling cascade Biological sciences; Biochemistry; Microbiology; PII-like protein SbtB; c-di-AMP signaling; Cyanobacteria; Carbon/Nitrogen metabolism; Redox imbalance; Photosynthesis; Reactive oxygen species (ROS); C...

A bit late 🙃 but happy to share our recent findings on #cdiAMP signaling in controlling #cyanobacteria #diurnal rhythm in @cp-iscience.bsky.social

www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

#cdiAMP is involved in almost all cellular processes, explaining it's essentiality in #cyano
@hhu.de
@mibinet.bsky.social

New pre-print from our group showing remarkable synchrony of proliferative growth and regulated cell death during plant infection- each conidial cell has a different fate - by the rice blast fungus. Led by Alice Eseola with @osesmir.bsky.social Lauren Ryder @danmaclean.bsky.social and Martin Egan

We’re renewing our collaboration with Google DeepMind!

We'll keep developing the AlphaFold Database to support protein science worldwide 🎉

To mark the moment we’ve synchronised the database with UniProtKB release 2025_03.

www.ebi.ac.uk/about/news/t...

🖥️🧬 #AlphaFold
@pdbeurope.bsky.social

Long-term homeostasis in microbial consortia via auxotrophic cross-feeding - Nature Communications Synthetic microbial consortia are collections of strains which can segregate metabolic tasks for efficient use in biomaterials, biomanufacturing, and biotherapeutics. Here, the authors present a method to maintain and tune the ratio of two co-cultured bacterial strains via growth medium manipulation.

Very interesting work for maintaining synthetic microbial consortia

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@mibinet.bsky.social

Independent research fellowships leading to tenured positions at the John Innes Centre.

Repost = nice. Thank you very much!!!

The Viral AlphaFold Database of monomers and homodimers reveals conserved protein folds in viruses of bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes VAD is a Viral AlphaFold Database of protein monomers and homodimers from viruses infecting hosts across the tree of life.

Viral AlphaFold Database (VAD) is live in Science Advances

~27,000 predicted viral protein monomers & homodimers

Conserved folds across bacteria, archaea & eukaryotic viruses

New toxin–antitoxin system KreTA uncovered

Vast “functional darkness” remains uncharted

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Excited to share our latest work, spearheaded by @gabmrojas.bsky.social!

GPCRs are central sensors in eukaryotes, but little is known about them in fungi. In Ustilago maydis, we now uncovered a host-dependent GPCR mechanism that promotes fungal infection.

Gabriel nicely explains the full story👇

Protein Domain Designer tool for the generation of publication-ready protein domain diagrams

New week, new tool: Find our Protein Domain Designer tool to generate publication-ready protein domain diagrams here: domaindesigner.farnunglab.com

New Insights Into Bacterial Motility and DNA Transfer:
a small press on our discovery of ComFB signaling family by @claussenarne.bsky.social @hhu.de

www.eurekalert.org/news-release...
w/ @mygalperin.bsky.social @thethormannden.bsky.social
@cmfi.bsky.social @mibinet.bsky.social @sfb1381.bsky.social

Happy to share the Biodiversity Cell Atlas white paper, out today in @nature.com. We look at the possibilities, challenges, and potential impacts of molecularly mapping cells across the tree of life.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The First of Us: Ophiocordyceps use a novel scramblase-binding peptide to manipulate zombie ants Parasite-adaptive manipulation of behavior is a widespread natural phenomenon. While Ophiocordyceps zombie fungi are well-known for hijacking ant behavior to increase their fitness, functionally chara...

Which fungal 🍄 molecules cause zombie 🧟‍♀️ ant 🐜 behaviors? @williamycete.bsky.social has begun to answer this question! He found a peptide that binds to scramblase and affects important odor-dependent behaviors in ants. Spoiler: worms 🪱 played a key role in this research 🧐 doi.org/10.1101/2025...

How the twin-arginine translocase (Tat) system manages to transport folded proteins across membranes without any leaks? To answer this fundamental question we solved the first structure of TatB3C3 complex with bound cargo. Please check out new preprint!
t.co/962Kj9pt6F

De novo discovery of conserved gene clusters in microbial genomes with Spacedust - Nature Methods This work presents Spacedust, a tool for de novo identification of conserved gene clusters from metagenomic data.

Spacedust: a tool for de novo identification of conserved gene clusters from metagenomic data.
@ruoshiz.bsky.social @milot.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Coming out in @NaturePlants today (rdcu.be/eBScJ): The mechanism for essential amino acid transport across the chloroplast envelope. We identified RETICULATA1 (RE1) as a new type of transport protein. #PlantScience #AminoAcidTransport #Chloroplasts. @franzikuhnert.bsky.social @weberlab.bsky.social

Rewinding the tape: historical contingency and functional constraints have shaped the evolution of APikL virulence effectors in the blast fungus Protein evolution is influenced by historical contingencies and functional constraints, but their combined impact on rapidly diversifying pathogen virulence effectors remains poorly understood. Here, ...

We’re excited to share our latest work on plant pathogen effector protein evolution @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social. With @kamounlab.bsky.social and Abbas Maqbool.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Wonderful (and humble) essay on mentorship by Brandon Gaut, on occasion of Brandon receiving the inaugural Mentorship Award of @genetics-gsa.bsky.social. I hope this will be widely read!

academic.oup.com/genetics/art...