Ken Shirasu

Dr. Juliane Ishida, a smiling woman with long dark hair wearing a black sleeveless top and pearl earrings, photographed against a lush green backdrop of leafy plants with small pink flowers.

"We resubmitted the paper elsewhere, and for the next 10 years, it was the most cited publication of my career."

Dr Juliane Ishida on the importance of perseverance in publishing papers

botany.one/2025/08/juli...

#Botany #PlantScience 🧪

Here comes the final version.
Congratulations Erika, Yasu, Ken, and all others involved!
@yasukadota.bsky.social @shirasulab.bsky.social

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A copper-dependent, redox-based hydrogen peroxide perception in plants Redox-related molecules, such as quinones and reactive oxygen species (ROS), are important signaling molecules for all living organisms. A plant-specific leucine rich-repeat receptor-like kinase (LRR-...

Exciting preprint! CryoEM structure of plant ROS & quinone receptor CARD1 (also known as HPCA1) reveals it is a copper dependent redox sensor (and cys residues not essential). CARD1 is a member of LRR-RLK clade VIII-1. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Well done, Erika and Yasu and co!

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...

Era of immune receptor engineering just begun! Congrats!!!

A copper-dependent, redox-based hydrogen peroxide perception in plants Redox-related molecules, such as quinones and reactive oxygen species (ROS), are important signaling molecules for all living organisms. A plant-specific leucine rich-repeat receptor-like kinase (LRR-...

Cool one from Anuphon, again Ken's lab @shirasulab.bsky.social former colleague!

"Our work reports the first copper-dependent redox receptor"

"successfully determined how CARD1 uses Cu+ in CARD1 to perceive ROS ... CARD1 can discriminate between quinone and H2O2"

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

Cryo structure of CARD1 from N. benthamiana transiently produced protein.

Our new work lead by Anuphon. Cryo Structure of CARD1 reveals copper in the ecodomain, required for sensing H202. The phenotype of card1 is same as rbohd, suggesting ROS produced by RBOHD is sensed by CARD1.

BTW, he is not my PhD student.

Explore the latest research on the molecular battles between plants, nematodes, and parasitic plants in the #2025ISMPMI concurrent session, “Plant Interactions with Nematodes & Parasitic Plants.”

bit.ly/3SmrAZ1

Registration closes 7 July!

#Nematology #ParasiticPlants

My postdoctoral advisor, Professor Fumiaki Katagiri, will retire this May. My time in his lab was foundational to my career. He was exceptionally intelligent, kind, and patient—and without his guidance, I would not be who I am today.

Proud to present the first data paper from the lab, published today in @pnas.org.

We describe a new mechanism for CLE peptides as local symbiosis-amplifying signals, promoting plant interactions with beneficial arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.

Congratulations @sagarbashyal.bsky.social et al.!

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...

A fungal transcription factor converts a beneficial root endophyte into an anthracnose leaf pathogen Endophytic fungi colonize healthy plant tissues without disease. Ujimatsu et al. reveal that the fungal transcription factor CtBOT6 triggers the virulence of a root-associated beneficial endophyte by ...

We have identified a fungal transcription factor, CtBOT6, as a key regulator of the diverse lifestyles exhibited by the root-associated endophyte Colletotrichum tofieldiae along the mutualism–parasitism continuum. Congratulation on
@rujimatsu.bsky.social‬!
www.cell.com/current-biol...

Cocktail Menu at Insect Bar in Tokyo

Public Statement on Supporting Science for the Benefit of All Citizens TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE We all rely on science. Science gave us the smartphones in our pockets, the navigation systems in our cars, and life-saving medical care. We count on engineers when we drive acr...

Stand up.

Today I join with >1900 members of the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine signing this letter, as individuals, decrying the assault on #science by the GOP and Trump administration.

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

A wheat tandem kinase activates an NLR to trigger immunity The role of nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) receptors in plant immunity is well studied, but the function of a class of tandem kinases (TKs) that confer disease resistance in wheat and ba...

2 papers in @science.org this week uncover wheat tandem kinase function. Working in parallel, the authors of each paper show that two different tandem kinases converge to activate the same NLR!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

#PlantScience

This position may be filled at any time. If you're interested but haven't applied yet, we encourage you to submit your application this week!

Apoplastic barriers are essential for nodule formation and nitrogen fixation in Lotus japonicus Establishment of the apoplastic root barrier known as the Casparian strip occurs early in root development. In legumes, this area overlaps with nitrogen-fixing nodule formation, which raises the possi...

#PlantScience in this week's @science.org:
A link between the Casparian and establishment of bacterial nodules for N fixation
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
@tonnigrubeandersen.bsky.social

It is real! 🤩
I can touch it (after I printed it).
Huge Congrats to everyone involved! 😀

important work www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Proud to share our must-read preprint, where we unveil a novel MAMP-immune receptor pair and pioneer the design of synthetic receptors to expand plant immune surveillance. Huge congratulations to @brunongou.bsky.social. I couldn’t be prouder of this breakthrough.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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:

We cloned 181 from the Pomelo cultivar "banpeiyu" (晩白柚; Citrus maxima). Banpeiyu produces the world’s largest citrus fruits.
Here's a photo of me holding a farm-grown banpeiyu from Kumamoto, versus the only single banpeiyu produced by my home-grown baby tree🍊

This has truly been one of my fav projects. Huge thanks to Michele & Marc, Takehiro & Dohmae-sensei for the bioinformatic & MS support, @yasukadota.bsky.social & @shirasulab.bsky.social for their unwavering support & belief in me & this project. Hope you enjoyed the thread & happy to discuss!

Well done, Bruno and Yasu!!!

Phyllosphere 12 The ‘phyllosphere meeting’ is a (typically) quinquennial event that brings together experts from around the world with a scientific interest in leaves (and other above-ground parts of plants and trees...

Phyllosphere 12 at OIST, Okinawa Japan.
June 6, 2025 - June 9, 2025

The deadline: 2025-04-05

There are still lots of talk slots available.

www.oist.jp/conference/p...

PCP Poster Award Winners receiving their certificates from Tetsuya Higashiyama, EIC, at the conference reception.
Well done to these amazingly talented students - the future’s looking bright for #PlantScience!

#EarlyCareer
#JSPPKanazawa2025
#JSPP

A special opportunity to host my masters and PhD supervisor Thomas Lahaye (ZMBP Tübingen) as seminar speaker today @camplantsci.bsky.social - exciting science and thoughtful conversations as always.