Team Thomma

Super excited to be joining @thesainsburylab.bsky.social and to begin this new chapter in Norwich!!
And thrilled to be neighbours with the Mutualisms Research Group at @hassansalem.bsky.social and the wider community at @johninnescentre.bsky.social. Can’t wait to get started! 😁

📣NEWS: We are delighted to share that Dr Aileen Berasategui @berasymbionts.bsky.social will join us as a new group leader next year.

“Aileen is an exceptionally talented scientist and brings new expertise to TSL in plant-insect-fungal interactions” says @talbotlabtsl.bsky.social

buff.ly/kRs4ASU

13th Utrecht PhD Summer School​ Environmental Signaling in Plants Aug 24-26 2026 Speakers: Laura Ragni, Roeland Berendsen, Mariana Silva Artur, Matthew Paul, Ari Sadanandom, Beatrice Giuntoli, Bruno Guillotin, Priya Ramakrishna, Caroline Gutjahr, Niko Geldner, Laura Bacete and Marcel Beukeboom.

We are beyond excited to reveal the full line-up for our Environmental Signaling in Plants summer school 2026!

Registration is now open here eps.sites.uu.nl - we look forward to seeing you in Utrecht on 24th-26th August!

Finally published!
Our new study in Curr Biol @currentbiology.bsky.social analyzes how CYP707A1 promoter variation drives an evolutionary trade-off between stomatal defense and gas exchange across Brassicaceae species.
Free-access link:
authors.elsevier.com/a/1m7H93QW8S...

New paper led by @metalichen.bsky.social from our group presenting a chromosome-level assembly of the Trebouxia photobiont alga from the lichen Xanthoria parietina - a resource we hope will enable significant new insight into the symbiosis @newphyt.bsky.social doi.org/10.1111/nph....

the top half shows two panels with microscopy images. Left is a light-microscopy image of a group of algal cells. The cells are round with different sizes. Two arrows point at sporangia: one looks as if someone stuffed 8 footballs in a thin elastic bag. The other is perfectly round and contains many small spores within. The right panel shows the same group of cells, but in fluorescent microscopy, where green color shows chloroplasts. In each cell the chloroplasts are globular with small lobes sticking out. The bottom half shows a photo of Xanthoria lichen - bright yellow and leafy growing on a tree branch

Our paper on the #genome of the Trebouxia #photobiont from Xanthoria is now out in @newphyt.bsky.social! Check below for a near-chromosome level assembly, secretome analysis, evidence of ancient HGT, and transcriptomic comparison of the alga in symbiosis and in pure culture
doi.org/10.1111/nph.70728

🌱 Postdoc position in Plant Genomics/Bioinformatics!

Love genome plasticity, computational methods, and solving big questions in plant biology? Join our newly established Institute for Crop Biology at HHU Düsseldorf.

More info on schneebergerlab.org/career/
Apply by Nov. 30 | 3-year position

Delighted to share that James Brown has been awarded BSPP Honorary Membership 2025!

A career spanning pioneering pathogen genetics, major advances in wheat disease resistance, and work to protect UK trees from ash dieback and Dutch elm disease.
bsppjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

A lettuce receptor-like kinase recognizes the highly conserved heptapeptide motif within microbial NEP1-like proteins https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.10.687460v1

Congratulations @charpentiermyriam.bsky.social! Hugely deserved!! 🥳 🥂

Dr Myriam Charpentier awarded Adam Kondorosi prize | John Innes Centre Dr Myriam Charpentier has received a prestigious international award from the Academia Europaea for her groundbreaking research into plant-microbe interactions…

NEWS - Dr Myriam Charpentier awarded Adam Kondorosi prize

Dr @charpentiermyriam.bsky.social has received a prestigious international award from the Academia Europaea for her groundbreaking research into plant-microbe interactions.

www.jic.ac.uk/news/dr-myri...

advert text as bitmap

picture of the Schornacklab team

Plz RP. Come join us at @slcuplants.bsky.social @cam.ac.uk to study effector-targeted plant processes impacting plant cell biology and development.
www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/post-do...
www.schornacklab.net

To all visionary microbe enthusiasts: @femsmicro.org is looking for an editor-in-chief for their flagship journal FEMS Microbiology Reviews! More details can be found here: fems-microbiology.org/opportunitie...

Guns in rosettes: The Arabidopsis chemical weapons arsenal Arabidopsis remains one of the best-studied models today and has a number of remarkable chemical defense systems which actively engage, interact, and preve

Guns in rosettes: The Arabidopsis chemical weapons arsenal (Marc Somssich, Daniel J Kliebenstein, Tonni Grube Andersen) doi.org/10.1093/plph... #PlantScience @aspbofficial

In situ architecture of the nuclear pore complex of the higher plant Arabidopsis thaliana - Nature Plants Using advanced imaging techniques and computer modelling, the authors were able to create a detailed structural model of a nuclear pore complex from a seed plant.

"...the higher plant Arabidopsis thaliana" 🤔

@natplants.nature.com you may want to edit the title!

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

My new Emmy Noether Group is recruiting!

🔬 Two PhD positions in plant pathogen evolution

🧬 Start: April 2026 (flexible)

📍 Dept. of Phytopathology & Plant Protection @rstam.bsky.social @uni-kiel.de

⏰ Apply by 15 Dec 2025

🔗 More info: www.uni-kiel.de/personal/de/...

Do get in touch or share 😊

Postdoc position in my lab in Cologne starting early next year or latest in spring to get this exciting project started.

jobportal.uni-koeln.de/ausschreibun...

crTP X-ray structure

✨X-ray crystallography reveals surprising twist in how proteins enter the unique photosynthetic organelles of Paulinella. The chromatophore targeting peptide (crTP) folds into a 3D structure, hinting that folded proteins cross peptidoglycan and inner membrane. (1/2)
academic.oup.com/plphys/artic...

Av2 is used by Verticillium dahliae for direct growth inhibition of antagonistic Pseudomonas spp.

Undermining the cry for help: the phytopathogenic fungus Verticillium dahliae secretes an antimicrobial effector protein to undermine host recruitment of antagonistic Pseudomonas bacteria

Kraege et al. @teamthomma.bsky.social

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Tough one! We think the "cry" is not silenced....the plant still cries out, we hypothesise. But, the response (attraction of Pseudomonads) is undermined. So we thought the "undermining" is perhaps a somewhat better analogy.

Very proud and happy to have contributed to this work. Special thanks to @antonkraege.bsky.social, @wolki95.bsky.social and @teamthomma.bsky.social

I’m very happy to see my fist article now officially published 🥳 great work by my partner in crime @wolki95.bsky.social and the rest of @teamthomma.bsky.social! Find it here: doi.org/10.1111/nph.... or have a look at the 🧵⬇️

For details, see the 🧵we published earlier based on the @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social submission: bsky.app/profile/team...

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....

@tobybarilbio.bsky.social and I are very excited to release MycoMobilome! A very extensive effort to discover, QC and annotate TEs across the fungal kingdom.

👉 Ready-to-use for your own genome with a simple tutorial!
👉 Metadata about TEs discovered in your genome!
👉 Contribute and get recognition!

Merce Montoliu brings us a presentation about wonderful #lichens at the #biodiversity25. Lichens are associations between mycobionts (fungi), photobionts (green algae or cianobacteria) and microbiomes. 38 different lichens were sequenced in DToL & ASH. Results show complex multiorganismal scenarios

Diagrams of fruit fly larvae (left) and adult (right) annotated with genes expressed in different tissues, including male- or female-biased gene expressions.

A diagram providing an overview of the regulation of antimicrobial peptide and other host effector peptides by Toll and Imd signalling, alongside diagrams showing the diversity of the peptides.

A summary table illustrating sequence features common to antimicrobial peptides, and a summary table of gene families.

A diagram giving a model for the mechanisms of antimicrobial peptide and host defence peptide actions in killing microbial cells, including precise mechanisms, broader host-pathogen relationships, and non-microbicidal roles of these peptides in protecting the host.

Bizarre that our 2020 #Drosophila #AMP review already feels out of date.

Thanks to #AnnualReviews to cover the many updates in the field and present a much more complete picture of the diversity, mechanisms, topics, of fly immunity re: host defence peptides.

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Open Positions ERC-funded project on the mechanism of horizontal transfer of entire fungal chromosomes PhD PostDoc

Want to understand how entire fungal chromosomes can be horizontally transferred?
Join us to unravel the mechanism/consequences of horizontal chromosome transfer in a fungal pathogen as part of an ERC-funded project. Postdoc/PhD positions available.
fungal-evolutionary-genetics.de/open-positio...

Widespread shifts in genome architecture and trophism across fungi. Phylogenetic positions of the shifts identified for genome size. Negative values denote an identified decrease in the genomic trait value while positive values denote an increase in the genomic trait value.

Fungal #GenomeSize variation is largely driven by TEs & lineage-specific genome defenses. @tbadet.bsky.social & @danielcroll.bsky.social show that presence/absence of RIP mutation systems influences #genome architecture, identifying a likely novel defense mechanism @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4hcC5tx

Altogether we show that the outcome of effector-mediated microbiota manipulation by Verticillium is determined by the composition of the host-associated microbiota which, in turn, is influenced by the surrounding soil. Happy to hear your feedback! {END}