Josh Bennett

Unlocking expanded flagellin perception through rational receptor engineering - Nature Plants Receptor kinase FLS2 detects the flg22 epitope of bacterial flagellin. Here the authors identify key residues on FLS2’s concave surface that enable expanded perception of flg22 variants, allowing the ...

Excited this paper is finally published! We focused on the inner concave surface of LRR RKs to expand bacterial flagellin perception in plants. Selection indicates expanded perception is more common than previously thought. Experiments led by @jerrytli.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A conserved small RNA-generating gene cluster undergoes sequence diversification and contributes to plant immunity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.20.665670v1

#2025ISMPMI Want to know about transcriptional regulation driving pathogenicity in the blast fungus? Come to my poster (P-156) session today!
From 13:30 to 15:15 🌾

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

🎉 Exciting news during #2025ISMPMI
Our AlphaFold sensor vs helper NLR paper is now published in @newphyt.bsky.social‬!

Big thanks to the reviewers for their constructive feedback 🙏

📖 Check out the peer-reviewed version here 👇
🔗 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

bsky.app/profile/yusu...

Plant Peptide Receptor Meeting 2025

Join us for the 🪴 🌵 Plant Peptide Receptor Meeting 2025 ☘️ 🪴 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Edinburgh 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 8th-10th September

#plantsignaling #PlantScience #plantsci

pprm2025.events.kdmeventsportal.co.uk
@pprm2025.bsky.social

A thread 🧵
(1/n)

Very happy to share our preprint on heavy metal associated (HMA) domain-containing rice proteins bound by the rice blast MAX effector AVR-Pia! 🌾

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!

The Magnaporthe oryzae MAX effector AVR-Pia binds a novel group of rice HMA domain-containing proteins https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.11.664054v1

A plant pathogen effector blocks stepwise assembly of a helper NLR resistosome https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.14.664264v1

Up and ready! Find me at P-267 today for some molecular evolution and NLR biology! 🥬💻

You can also find the poster and preprint below 👇🏻

#2025ISMPMI

Preprint: “Structural modeling reveals viral proteins that manipulate host immune signaling”

Using AI-guided structural modeling, we find new families of viral proteins that sequester or cleave host immune signaling molecules

Congrats Nitzan Tal!

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

Viral genomes might encode more proteins than we initially thought!

Intrigued? Come see my poster on the identification of potentially new ORFs in the potato virus X genome.

Tuesday 9:55-11:30, P-266
@geminiteamlab.bsky.social
#2025ISMPMI

Ahn Lab is going to MPMI! #2025ISMPMI
Hayden Burdett and myself will be attending the MPMI conference in Cologne ⛪
Check out poster P-073 for paired NLR biology, and let's chat about paired NLRs and more!🌱
See you in Cologne 😀
@instmolplantsci.bsky.social

Pikobodies vs. Potato Blight 🥊🥔
NLR–Nanobody Fusions Take on P. infestans 💥

🎤 Talk: Thurs July 17th, 16:35
🧾 Poster P-64: Tues 15th, Session 2

Poster’s up on Zenodo if you’re into spoilers 👀📎
zenodo.org/records/1584...

#2025ISMPMI #OpenMPMI🌿

Virulence on Pm4 kinase-based resistance is determined by two divergent wheat powdery mildew effectors The wheat resistance gene Pm4 encodes a kinase fusion protein and has gained particular attention as it confers race-specific resistance against two major wheat pathogens: powdery mildew and blast. He...

Check out our work on virulence on Pm4 controlled not by one, but two effectors! Avirulence vs. Suppression, a beautiful case of the arms race between wheat and mildew. Work led by @zoebernasconi.bsky.social , Aline Herger, Pilar Caro, and @lukas-kunz.bsky.social 😍🌱🦠!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Shedding light on the structure-function mechanisms of LRR-RPs. Our research merges #AlphaFold3, years of literature and functional validation to reveal diverse ligand-binding mechanisms and a conserved co-receptor association mechanism. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Thrilled to share our latest preprint! This work started during my PhD and was finished together with @jmadhuprakash.bsky.social. We found a Phytophthora infestans L-shaped effector that bridges a host TOL protein to activated NLRs to suppress immunity!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
1/15

Looking forward to meeting friends and colleagues at #2025ISMPMI next week!

Find me at P-267 >>> Session 1, Monday, 14th.

In the meantime, you can check out my poster on Zenodo :) #openscience

zenodo.org/records/1583...

β-sheet stabilization of the island domain underlies ligand-induced LRR-RP activation of plant immune signaling https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.07.663532v1

Research Associate in Programmable Plant Immunity at Imperial College London Apply for the Research Associate in Programmable Plant Immunity role on jobs.ac.uk, the top job board for academic positions in higher education. View details and apply now.

Plz RT. We are looking for a postdoc to join our collborative project on AI-guided bioengineering of plant immune receptors @tolgaboz.bsky.social and @jiorgoskourelis.bsky.social labs: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNV032/r...

An effector from the potato late blight pathogen bridges ENTH-domain protein TOL9a to an activated helper NLR to suppress immunity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.06.663370v1

1/🚨 New preprint alert! Can mutualists and pathogens co-colonise the same living plant cell and what does that do to the plant membranes that surround these microbes?

Don't miss this awesome work of @yichangsung.bsky.social on plant tandem kinases (TKPs)!!

A wheat tandem kinase and NLR pair confers resistance to multiple fungal pathogens Tandem kinase proteins underlie the innate immune systems of cereal plants, but how they initiate plant immune responses remains unclear. This report identifies wheat protein wheat tandem NBD 1 (WTN1)...

Oh yes. This is new. Non-NLR and NLR pair for immune sensor and executor!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Exploring fern pathosystems and immune receptors to bridge gaps in plant immunity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.18.643875v1

Systematic Discovery and Design of Synthetic Immune Receptors in Plants Plants deploy a diverse array of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) that perceive microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs) to activate immune responses. Leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinase...

First post on Bluesky!! ☀️

Very happy to share that my main postdoc work ‘Systematic Discovery and Design of Synthetic Immune Receptors in Plants’ is finally out on Biorxiv!

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

The full story is summarized here:

Gene-edited non-browning banana could cut food waste, scientists say Fruit variety developed in Norwich remains fresh for up to 12 hours after being peeled

Gene-edited non-browning banana could cut food waste, scientists say www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Solanum pan-genetics reveals paralogues as contingencies in crop engineering - Nature Gene duplication and subsequent paralogue diversification are major obstacles to genotype-to-phenotype predictability.

🚨New paper published in @nature.com! Using pan-genetics across the Solanum genus🍅🥔🍆we reveal why gene duplications🧬are major contingencies in crop engineering. My postdoc work in the Lippman lab @CSHL, collab. with @katiejenike.bsky.social @mikeschatz.bsky.social chatz.bsky.social and many others!