Meenu Singla-Rastogi

The Pea Aphid's Secret Weapon Uncovered! 🤫 Our Commentary highlights the discovery of aphid effector Ap4—a single salivary protein—that manipulates the plant's defense system to boost pest's reproductive success.
apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/10.1094/...
@msr20.bsky.social
@mpmijournal.bsky.social

What does it take to transform a scientific discovery into a thriving enterprise? Jay Keasling, renowned synthetic biologist, professor, and entrepreneur, has pioneered new ways of engineering biology while also founding multiple companies. Free webinar Oct 3.
view6.workcast.net/register?cpa...

Today's the last day to apply for the Plant Cell Assistant Features Editor (AFE) program, usually postdocs or senior PhD students! It's a fantastic opportunity, a great learning experience & a lot of fun too.
If you aren't quite ready, in June 2026 Plant Physiology will open its own call for AFEs 👍

How can we better understand the plant immune system? In my new @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social piece, I propose “immune cell states” as a framework for uniting molecular and cellular perspectives.

www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

Nuclear lamina phase separation orchestrates stress-induced transcriptional responses in plants @cp-devcell.bsky.social from Yangnun Gu's lab

www.cell.com/developmenta...

Slide with images of speakers

Last session of #PlantBio2025 Cara Haney, Tatsuya Nobori, Gary Stacy, Meenu Singla-Rastogi

Molecular Exchange between Plants and their Interacting Microbes.

Cara Haney, Tatsuya Nobori, Gary Stacy, and Meenu Singla-Ragstogi

I'm excited for the final plenary at #PlantBio2025!
Cara Haney, Tatsuya Nobori, Gary Stacy, and Meenu Singla-Ragstogi speaking on Molecular Exchange between Plants and their Interacting Microbes. 🌱🦠
@tatsuyanobori.bsky.social
@carahaney.bsky.social
@msr20.bsky.social

A great group of young scientists.

A whole bunch of Assistants Features Editors from @theplantcell.bsky.social and @plantphys.bsky.social getting to know each other 💚
#PlantBio2025

The Plant Cell is accepting applications for Assistant Features Editors | Plant Science Today Are you an early career researcher passionate about plants and science communication? The Plant Cell is accepting applications for new Assistant Features Editors (AFEs) to begin in 2026 and 2027.

#PlantBio2025. Be sure to stop by the ASPB booth in the exhibition hall to learn about the AFE program. We have more than 20 AFEs at the conference!
👉 The Plant Cell is accepting applications for Assistant Features Editors share.google/wqUgOmxQYW4u...
Apply by September 15 #PlantBio

Stop displaying journal names on your slides A mentoring event at a scientific Congress called for better support of early-career scientists — but what followed sent mixed signals…

I just published: Stop displaying journal names on your slides

A mentoring event at a Congress called for better support of early-career scientists - but what followed sent mixed signals. This blog reflects on those moments and ends with a pledge.

medium.com/p/stop-displ...

One-year taught MSc in Global Plant Health. Deadline 29th August for applicants who don’t need a visa. David Sainsbury 50% Fee Scholarships available for 22nd September 2025 entry. www.tsl.ac.uk/msc

National Academy of Sciences Elects Members and International Members - NAS WASHINGTON — The National Academy of Sciences announced today the election of 120 members and 30 international members in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original res...

It's exciting to see the New plant biology/agriculture members of the National Academy of Sciences, especially former NAASC member @inneslab.bsky.social !
#nas162
Robin Buell
Alice Cheung
Christoph Benning
Roger Innes
Hailing Jin
Uta Paszkowski (international) www.nasonline.org/news/2025-na...

IU Bloomington Distinguished Professor of Biology Roger Innes.

IU biologist Roger Innes, newly elected to the National Academy of Sciences, is advancing research on plant immune systems that could increase crop yields and reduce costs for farmers. @inneslab.bsky.social @msr20.bsky.social @luciaborniego.bsky.social

Read more: go.iu.edu/8tDD

We’re thrilled to announce the speakers for our IS-MPMI 2025 satellite meeting:
"Building Careers in MPMI through Effective Mentoring"
📍 13 July 2025 • Cologne, Germany
🌟 Sebastian Schornack
🌟 Anne Pfeiffer
🌟 Rosa Lozano-Durán
🌟 Kenichi Tsuda
📢 Join us for inspiring talks

📣Be sure to vote in ASPB's 2025 Elections!🌱 #ICYMI watch the Meet the President-Elect Candidates Webinar!

🗳️Vote now for President-Elect and elected members. The voting deadline is June 18, 2025 👉excom.aspb.org.

#plantscience #WeAreASPB

IN BRIEF: The complex immune puzzle: A deeper dive into the MORC1-mediated broad-spectrum defense signaling pathway (Meenu Singla-Rastogi) doi.org/10.1093/plce... #PlantScience

Great Lakes Plant Science Conference Graphic showing the Great Lakes and a QR code for info on applying for travel awards.

Big news for #GreatLakes region plant scientists! Travel awards are now available for the 1st Great Lakes Plant Science Conference! Trainees can apply for a $300 travel grant to support their trip to Lansing, MI! #GLPSC2025
Learn more & apply by April 30: research.msu.edu/glpsc2025

Arabidopsis Produces Distinct Subpopulations of Extracellular Vesicles That Respond Differentially to Biotic Stress, Altering Growth and Infectivity of a Fungal Pathogen Extracellular vesicles (EVs) secreted by mammalian cells are highly heterogeneous in content and function. Whether this is also true for EVs secreted by plant cells is not yet known. To address this,...

Our latest analysis of plant EVs led by Ben Koch with the help of Brian Rutter, @luciaborniego.bsky.social‬, @msr20.bsky.social‬, and Dillon Gardner is now available open access. LOTS of new data added to our previous bioRxiv posting. Check it out isevjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

B, Sporulating lesion on a rice leaf. C, Sporulating lesions on a wheat leaf. D, Rice panicle neck infections block all grain filling above the infection points (red arrows). E, Wheat spike blast with individual directly infected spikelets. F, Wheat rachis infections kill all spikelets above the infection points. Removed spikelets show stem infection points (red arrows) with gray sporulation. G, Finger millet neck infection (red arrow) kills all fingers on the seed head. H, Leaf lesions on perennial ryegrass showing white lesion centers after spore release.

Just published! Barbara Valent honors H. H. Flor by exploring how rice blast fungus evades plant resistance via AVR gene changes—driving boom–bust cycles—and warns of rising wheat and ryegrass blast threats from similar shifts and crossbreeding. Read the article: doi.org/10.1094/MPMI...

Plants have a secret weapon against certain bacteria! Arabidopsis plants engineered to produce tiny RNA molecules can target and suppress bacterial genes, specifically those making the bacteria more infectious. These RNA molecules, found outside plant cells, come in three forms: protein-bound, en...

Vesicular and non-vesicular extracellular small RNAs direct gene silencing in a plant-interacting bacterium - Nature Communications This study shows that plants can secrete vesicular and non-vesicular small RNAs outside cells to direct silencing of a virulence factor in an interacting bacterium. This antibacterial gene silencing p...

Happy to share that my PhD work has finally been published in @natcomms.nature.com Nature Communications.
Here, we elucidated that plant-encoded small RNAs target virulence genes of phytopathogenic bacteria, which lack a conventional eukaryotic-like RNAi machinery.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Colletotrichum graminicola conidia/appressoria were fluorescence-labeled for Fe2+/Fe3+ with/without carpropamid. MPNBD/p-TEMPO stained Fe2+/Fe3+ (A-C). MPNBD/DAPI showed Fe3+ in nuclei (D-G). p-TEMPO/GelRed stained Fe2+, not in nuclei (I-L). Quantification of Fe2+/Fe3+ in hyphae/appressoria (H). Asterisk: conidium, arrowhead: appressorium. Scale: 10μm.

Iron's redox states (Fe2+/Fe3+) are critical in fungal pathogenesis, influencing ROS production during plant-pathogen interactions. Aliyeva-Schnorr et al. developed p-TEMPO and MPNBD dyes to visualize Fe2+/Fe3+ distribution in #Colletotrichumgraminicola hyphae. Learn more: doi.org/10.1094/MPMI...

#ASPBPlantCellTuesday #ICYMI

#ASPBPlantCellTuesday #ICYMI

Tan et al. developed efficient base editing vectors, achieving high A-to-G conversion rates in Arabidopsis thaliana and successfully targeting multiple genes, including NLRs, to modify protein function, demonstrating the potential of base editing 🧬
Learn more: doi.org/10.1094/MPMI...

NEWS This Brazilian frog might be the first pollinating amphibian known to science

It’s the first time a frog—or any amphibian—has been observed pollinating a plant, researchers reported in 2023.

Learn more on #WorldFrogDay: scim.ag/4kGdvCy

Very happy to see my colleague Julia Vorholt being recognized with the Novonesis Biotechnology Prize for her groundbreaking work on the plant leaf microbiome.
novonordiskfonden.dk/en/news/pion...
#plantscience

Fungal pathogen hijacks phosphate signaling to promote pathogenicity | Plantae Weakening your opponent is an effective way to win a battle. A new paper by McCombe et al. shows that several pathogenic fungi weaken their plant hosts by disrupting their phosphate signaling…

Plant Science Research Weekly -- Fungal pathogen hijacks phosphate signaling to promote pathogenicity (Science) @williamsanu.bsky.social
(Summary by Mary Williams @PlantTeaching.bsky.social ) buff.ly/hrP4G3P

#PlantaePSRW

Paper Alert! @pnas.org

We think nematodes break open plant cells, sense small molecule signals (termed effectostimulins), which switch on a master regulator SUGR1, which switches on effectors, which break cells.

Looks like a feed-forward loop driving infection.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

📣Happening tomorrow, Wednesday, March 12 at 1 pm Eastern time. Don’t miss it!

👉Learn more and register at blog.aspb.org/march-12-wha...

#PlantScience