Severin Einspanier

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

Zooming in on the timepoint just before infection onset, we observed the expression of several notable genes in the resistant genotype.
These included classic pathogenesis-related genes like PR1 and PR4, as well as genes involved in oxidative stress responses.
5/n

Next, we profiled gene expression across time series in three genotypes.
Interestingly, we observed relatively little early infection-induced gene expression: most strong differential expression occurred only after infection was well established.
4/n

We then set out to characterize host-derived factors controlling the lag phase.
Using the PhenoVation PlantExplorer Pro, we validated lag phase duration phenotypes by tracking Fv/Fm as a proxy for photosynthetic stress.
This allowed us to pinpoint early physiological changes between genotypes.
3/n

High-Resolution Disease Phenotyping Reveals Distinct Resistance Mechanisms of Tomato Crop Wild Relatives against Sclerotinia sclerotiorum | Plant Phenomics Besides the well-understood qualitative disease resistance, plants possess a more complex quantitative form of resistance: quantitative disease resistance (QDR). QDR is commonly defined as a partial b...

We previously showed that lesion onset timing isn’t just up to the pathogen: plant genotype plays a role too.

Suggesting lag phase duration as a promising phenotype for breeding in quantitative resistance
Read the full study: spj.science.org/doi/10.34133...
2/n

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

#2025ISMPMI has been great, so many connections made and re-established. I found this on the railway bridge.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Up next at #2025ISMPMI @kseniakrasileva.bsky.social discussing work on protein language model for receptor engineering.

Effector Innovation in Genome-Reduced Phytoplasmas and Other Host-Dependent Mollicutes Obligate host-associated bacteria with reduced genomes, such as phytoplasmas, face strong evolutionary constraints, including metabolic dependence on hosts, limited horizontal gene transfer (HGT), and...

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

I'd love to join as well!

Brilliant talk by Dr. Gitta Coaker (UC Davis) on engineering plant immunity via kinase-mediated recognition. Loved the insights on FLS2 tuning and tandem kinases like RWT4. Synthetic biology meets plant defense! 🌱

@mpmijournal.bsky.social
@gittacoaker.bsky.social
@kseniakrasileva.bsky.social

🌿 Curious about microbiomes, effectors, resistance genes, and temperature stress?
Come meet our team at #2025ISMPMI
We’ll be presenting posters all week on Zymoseptoria–plant interactions, wild relatives, and immune manipulation!
🧵 Thread with posters & schedule ⬇️

On Wednesday, I successfully defended my doctoral thesis @uni-kiel.de and followed the tradition by climbing Meteor to celebrate!
I’m deeply grateful for the incredible support and mentoring from @rstam.bsky.social and for my amazing colleagues, family, and friends!

Unlocking gene regulatory networks for crop resilience and sustainable agriculture Nature Biotechnology - Gene regulatory networks are crucial for understanding complex gene regulation in plants and could advance crop improvement for more sustainable and climate-resilient...

Unlocking gene regulatory networks for crop resilience and sustainable agriculture

Our new review is now online @natbiotech.nature.com

w/ Richalynn, Xin, Bob, Toshi, & Jorge

A full-text view-only is accessible via rdcu.be/euscD

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

Yesterday we celebrated the first two PhD defences from my lab in Kiel! Well done Dr @sev1panier.bsky.social and Dr Tominello-Ramirez!
The defences were excellent and they finished it off with the tradition of climbing the statue of meteor! de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_...

Me: "What did you learn at journal club today?"

Intern: "That one day I'm going to publish a paper, and a bunch of people are going to sit around a table and rip it apart."

Zikaden dezimieren Ernte von Zuckerrüben, Kartoffeln und Gemüse

Der Klimawandel stellt die Landwirtschaft vor Herausforderungen. In diesem Jahr unter anderem spürbar durch ein kleines Insekt - die Glasflügelzikade. Wie die sich an Veränderungen anpasst und damit zum Schreckgespenst der Kartoffelbetriebe wird, Reportage von Michael Watzke.

ich meine, dass Bananen-Aroma weiterhin 'Gros Michel' nachempfunden ist (Bananeneis schmeckt für mich zb auch recht unecht ;D )

Für viele an 'Cavendish' gewöhnte Menschen ist die vorige Bananen-Sorte Gros Michel zu aromatisch 🍌 😅

Really nice work from @jellespooren.bsky.social showing that disease-suppressive soils might sometimes be generated in the phyllosphere. Turning the concept of soilborne legacies upside down 🌱🦠 With @cornepieterse.bsky.social @svanwees.bsky.social and others @utrechtpmi.bsky.social

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

Die Schilf-Glasflügelzikade breitet sich aus und bedroht u.a. #Kartoffel- und #Zuckerrüben-Anbau. Sie überträgt Bakterien, die Pflanzenkrankheiten verursachen. Expert:innen analysierten die Ausbreitung und diskutierten mögliche Gegenmaßnahmen: www.sciencemediacenter.de/angebote/sch...