Nathan Williams

New to me today: the downy mildew Peronospora valerianellae on Valerianella
#WildPlantDisease #FungiFriends

A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand The emergence of a chemical system capable of self-replication and evolution is a critical event in the origin of life. RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but their large size and structural ...

How could a simple self-replicating system emerge at the origins of life? RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but existing ones are so large that their self-replication seems impossible. Could they be smaller?

Excited to share our latest work in @science.org on a new small polymerase.
1/n

Fig. 2 (shortened, full legend in paper): Structurally characterized M. oryzae effectors in complex with the HMA or HMA-like domains of host target proteins and ID-NLRs. Crystal structures of (A) AVR-PikF with the HMA-like domain of OsHIPP19 from rice (7B1I) (Maidment et al., 2021); (B) APikL2A with the HMA-like domain of sHMA25 from foxtail millet (7NLJ) (Bentham et al., 2021); (C) Pwl2 with the HMA domain of OsHIPP43 from rice (8R7D) (Zdrzałek et al., 2024); (D) AVR-PikD with the HMA-like ID of Pikp-1 from rice (5A6W) (Maqbool et al., 2015); (E) AVR-Pia with the HMA-like ID of Pikp-1 (6Q76) (Varden et al., 2019); (F) AVR1-CO39 with the HMA-like ID of RGA5 from rice (5ZNG) (Guo et al., 2018). Complexes are displayed such that the HMA/HMA-like domains are in equivalent orientations. Domains from HPP/HIPP host targets are coloured light green. Domains from ID-NLRs are coloured dark green.

⚙️🦠 REVIEW 🦠⚙️

Turley & Faulkner explore the function of plant heavy metal-associated domain-containing proteins and speculate about their functions at plasmodesmata by drawing from plant–pathogen interaction studies.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...

#PlantScience 🧪 Christine Faulkner

1/12 I'm ecstatic to share my preprint on legume NLR tissue expression! We investigated the NLRomes of 28 legumes + 4 outgroups, examining tissue expression across 7 legume species. Paper thread below 🧵👇
@thesainsburylab.bsky.social @itqbnova.bsky.social
🔗https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.01.25.701577

Are you interested in learning more about identifying plant pathogens in the wild? Come along to my webinar at 7pm on the 27th of January!
bsbi.org/take-part/ev...

#FungiFriends #WildPlantDisease

Pik pairs as resources for determining optimal ‘chassis’ for engineering recognition.

Mismatch screening in Nicotiana benthamiana to explore Pik-1/Pik-2 paired NLR platforms for receptor engineering

Yuxuan Xi (席玉轩) and Mark J. Banfield

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

#PlantScience

I’m excited to share a new preprint from Carella group #CarellaCapybaras! biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
In this study, we show molecular co-evolution of two popular nonhost resistance genes in plants, RAR1 and SGT1, in ferns. For a quick read before Christmas, here’s the thread:

Stepwise and lineage-specific divergence of a major immune co-chaperone complex in leptosporangiate ferns https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.17.694876v1

Super excited to see this pre-print out from the lab! Happy to have helped to establish & carry out the protoplast cell death assays for this work. Congrats to @danielsyu.bsky.social and all other authors 🥳🌱

Evolution of HMA-integrated tandem kinases accompanied by expansion of target pathogens https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.15.692859v1

Super-happy sharing my Lab's new work on engineering plant HMA-containing tandem kinase immune receptors. Congrats to all authors (@danielsyu.bsky.social and @njw33.bsky.social on here). Work only possible in collaboration with Soichiro Asuke. See linked paper to follow!
bsky.app/profile/bior...

Engineering plant tandem kinase immune receptors expands effector recognition profiles Plant intracellular immune receptors are widely deployed in breeding to protect crops from disease. In addition to nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat receptors (NLRs), tandem kinase proteins (TKPs...

Excited to share our #plantimmunity preprint on engineering cereal TKPs
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
A short thread below 👇

Engineering plant tandem kinase immune receptors expands effector recognition profiles https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.15.694194v1

Benchling darkmode when

CC-NLRs exhibit diverse conformations in the resting state. Figure depicts different NLR resting and activated states. While ZAR1 exists as a monomer bound to its guardees in its resting state, several forms have been observed for the NRC2 helper, including dimers, tetramers, and filaments. While filament-like structures were observed via confocal microscopy for NRC2 upon overexpression in planta, these structures were not detected for its paralog NRC4, suggesting a potentially different resting state configuration for NRC4. Our work suggests that the Pik CC-NLR pair forms a hetero-complex bound to the plasma membrane in its resting state. How effector binding to the integrated domain (ID) of the Pik-1 sensor leads to the activation of the complex remains to be determined.

Excited to share our latest work on plant immune receptor biochemistry! @kamounlab.bsky.social @hsuanpai.bsky.social @mpcontreras.bsky.social Jose Salguero Linares @danielluedke.bsky.social @adnroide.bsky.social @jiorgoskourelis.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Interactions between plant pathogens (left) and plants across five quadrats in a restored species-rich grassland. The basic premise of my PhD is to see if these interaction networks differ between restored and ancient grasslands.
#FungiFriends #NetworkEcology

New pre-print from the team!

The manuscript is @emma-raven.bsky.social's PhD work showing that whether a leaf is a carbon sink or a carbon source influences how they execute immune responses.

Have a read!

#PlantScience
@johninnescentre.bsky.social

#2025ISMPMI Agnus Bucknell of the Talbot lab gives an exciting presentation to engineer fungal effectors recognizing immune sensors based on Pik1. Great and clear talk.

Super excited to be giving a talk at #2025ISMPMI today in the Synthetic biology concurrent session from 15:15 - 15:35! Come along if you’re interested in engineering Tandem Kinase Proteins

Big thanks to everyone who stopped by my poster today at #2025ISMPMI!

For those that missed it, you can check it out on Zenodo!

zenodo.org/records/1588...

Excited to attend my 1st ISMPMI conference, and present our work on a paired wheat CNL/MLKL receptor mechanism! 🌾

Come chat to me at my poster on Tuesday, P-050! 📜

If you miss my poster session, I will be talking in: Crop resistance genetics and genomics on Wednesday - 16:25-16:35!

NoCass 4th to 5th September 2025 - registration now open!

#NoCass2025 registration now open!

If you're a student or post-doc at Norwich or Cambridge, join us at the Norwich-Cambridge Science Symposium on 4-5 September - a great chance to share research & form collaborations.

Find out more & register: lnkd.in/eH3We78t

@nocassofficial.bsky.social

Wheat tandem kinase RWT4 directly binds a fungal effector to activate defense - Nature Genetics This study shows that RWT4, a wheat tandem kinase, confers resistance to the fungal pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae by directly binding to the pathogen effector AvrPWT4 and activating host defense.

I'm very excited our most recent work on plant tandem kinases (TKPs) has finally been published! TKPs are a fascinating protein family conferring disease resistance to fungi. Originally in bioRxiv. Many thanks to @yichangsung.bsky.social for leading this work. 🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New year, new paper! Now published in @nature.com. We identified and characterised diverse immune cell states in plants under pathogen attack. My postdoc work in the Ecker lab at @salkinstitute.bsky.social. A thread (0/n)
#PlantScience
www.nature.com/articles/s41...