Severin Einspanier

Gene expression divergence following gene and genome duplications in spatially resolved plant transcriptomes After gene and genome duplications, expression divergence across cell types is not random, and it can be explained by a combination of gene age, gene funct

Our paper on the evolution (duplicated) gene expression divergence in spatially resolved plant transcriptomes is now out @theplantcell.bsky.social

w/ @yvdp.bsky.social

#PlantSci #Evolution

academic.oup.com/plcell/advan...

Co-option of transcription factors drives evolution of quantitative disease resistance against a necrotrophic pathogen (S Einspanier, C Tominello-Ramirez, F Delplace, R Stam) doi.org/10.1093/plce... #PlantScience @sev1panier

64. Deutsche Pflanzenschutztagung

64. Deutsche Pflanzenschutztagung

Dr Marion C. Müller (Julius Kühn Prize) and Dr Stephan Winter (Anton de Bary Medal) demonstrate how modern science protects plants and strengthens global food security.

#DPST25 at TU Braunschweig brings together 1,100 experts to discuss future challenges in #PlantProtection and #Phytomedicine – from pest spread and resistance to climate impacts.
🏅Congrats to Dr Müller and Dr Winter, honoured for their outstanding research.
@leibniz-dsmz.bsky.social #DPG

Now with official press release. I'm very much looking forward to welcome @cbarragan.bsky.social in January

www.uni-kiel.de/en/details/n...

Emmy Noether Programme funds Cristina Barragán to study fungal pathogen evolution DFG supports Emmy Noether Research Group at Kiel University to investigate fungal pathogens relevant to agriculture.

👏 Congratulations and welcome to Kiel, Dr Christina Barragán! The Mexican molecular biologist has received funding from the renowned Emmy Noether Programme by the @dfg.de​ to research the evolution of agriculturally relevant fungal pathogens at Kiel University.

🔗 More info here: https://www.uni-kiel.de/en/details/news/167-barragan-noether

Our first Annual Meeting marked a key milestone for the project, bringing together our community for engaging talks and valuable discussions. It was followed by a two-day workshop for early career scientists focused on networking and professional development. www.plantscochallenge.de/news.html

Und bestärkt weiterhin die Abkehr vom Anspruch der 'Natürlichkeit' in #landwirtschaft Produktionssystemen!

Urs Niggli fordert eine grundlegende Revision d. direkten #Pflanzenschutz im ökologischen Landbau🌾🍄 Vielversprechende Diskussionen auf der #DPST25

Very happy to see this work finally online!
Resistance against necrotrophic pathogens is not generally conserved. When comparing five wild tomato spp, we saw that one spp co-opted a different mechanism against Sclerotinia infection!

Co-option of transcription factors drives evolution of quantitative disease resistance against a necrotrophic pathogen Quantitative disease resistance in a wild tomato genotype evolved through species-specific regulatory network rewiring, with an ancient transcription facto

This looks very interesting. Congrats @rstam.bsky.social et al. Co-option of transcription factors drives evolution of quantitative disease resistance against a necrotrophic pathogen url: academic.oup.com/plcell/artic...

There are no words to describe how excited and honored I am to take on the role. Already had such amazing support from the plant pathology community in Switz and cannot wait to grow the team further and see how far we can get in tackling our fungal foes. Look out for jobs starting in May 2026!

Ich suche eine*n TA für meine Arbeitsgruppe!

Gern weitersagen 🤗🌾

#plantscijob

Pleased to share our new article in Cell Host & Microbe, a collaboration with the group of Zhong Wei at NJAU

Common mycorrhizal networks facilitate plant disease resistance by altering rhizosphere microbiome assembly

Free share link: authors.elsevier.com/c/1lnTD6t8JE...

Heads up: ignore samtools dot org, similarly minimap2 dot com and likely others. It's owned by a known phishing site and while the binaries they offer look valid currently (but note they may be serving us different binaries to others), that could change.

Ie: it's not us (Samtools team)! Be warned

Happy to share our pre-print!

Multi-omics of barley Fusarium Head Blight converge on pathogen-triggered biosynthesis of aromatic amino acid derived chemical defense compounds https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.08.674812v1

Congratulations, Isabel!!

Wow - congrats to all plant scientists! @izzysaurlab.bsky.social @pfeilmeier.bsky.social @jiorgoskourelis.bsky.social @clemmar.bsky.social @vinayshukla.bsky.social @tinaschreier.bsky.social so great to see 🌱s being rewarded the ERC StG!

'Nieuwe' ziekte Stolbur dreigt voor pootaardappelen Keuringsdienst NAK bereidt zich sinds juni voor op de mogelijke komst van de gewasziekte Stolbur in pootaardappelen. Aanleiding hiervoor zijn signalen uit buurlanden dat Stolbur zich steeds verder ver...

🪲🦠 Volgens keuringsdienst NAK trekt het #fytoplasma sterk op door toenemende vectorendruk. Doordat het warmer wordt, hebben glasvleugelcicaden een grotere overlevingskans. Het IRS trof in juni de eerste vondsten aan van een vergelijkbare ziekte.

first weather test: passed! 💨🌧️
all S. chilense accessions survived a super windy & rainy weekend: not a single loss!
tough wild tomatoes. they’re even thriving

#plantscience #StressTolerance #Solanaceae #SciComm

After some time (and a lot of rain), #Phytophthora finally reached the experiment. Some plants died within only a few days. But more importantly, about 1/3 of our accessions are still going strong! 💪🌿

🌱 Back to the wild!
We’ve just started a field trial with Solanum chilense at the @uni-kiel.de Botanical Garden.
Can’t wait to watch our wild tomatoes tackle the Northern German summer. 🍅
Stay tuned for our next field-trial updates!
#SChilense #FieldTrial #PlantScience #Kiel

After some time (and a lot of rain), #Phytophthora finally reached the experiment. Some plants died within only a few days. But more importantly, about 1/3 of our accessions are still going strong! 💪🌿

Is plant single cell/nuc. & spatial transcriptomics your passion? Do you want to understand plant adaptation using cutting edge molecular & bioinformatics tools? Then come and join us to work together with @ceplas.bsky.social & @wggc-de.bsky.social. #plantjobs
www.fz-juelich.de/de/karriere/...

Temporal Shifts in Gene Expression Drive Quantitative Resistance to a Necrotrophic Fungus in a Tomato Crop Wild Relative Resistance breeding against generalist necrotrophic pathogens heavily relies on quantitative disease resistance (QDR). Lesion growth dynamics involve distinct phases (e.g., lag phase duration or lesio...

🧬 Preprint alert!
Excited to share our latest work on the role of longitudinal gene expression dynamics in resistance to Sclerotinia sclerotiorum.

Check it out here 👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

1/n

🙏 A big thank you to all the amazing collaborators:

@rstam.bsky.social @andytobherre.bsky.social, N. Rangegwoda, L. Groenenberg, and T. van der Lee
@uni-kiel.de

🧩 To summarize:
We linked the lag phase phenotype in S. pennellii to longitudinal gene expression dynamics, and identified WRKY6 as a potential transcriptional coordinator of this timed defense response. Most likely contributing to ⏱️ lag phase–mediated resistance against Sclerotinia!
8/n

Through Gene Regulatory Network analysis, we identified a shared transcription factor likely coordinating the defense response: WRKY6.

Interestingly, the resistant genotype shows constitutively high WRKY6 expression. Almost as if it's primed.
7/n

This raised the question: does longitudinal regulation of these genes differ between resistant and susceptible genotypes?

Clustering based on Bayesian and Dirichlet statistics revealed that key genes were expressed earlier in the resistant genotype and delayed in the susceptible ones!
6/n