Alex Costa

Thrilled to share that Stefano Buratti has been awarded the Fratelli Confalonieri Postdoctoral Fellowship! He'll be joining my lab @LaStatale to develop innovative tools for exploring plant–environment interactions. Congratulations, Stefano!

The burning glass effect of water droplets triggers a high light-induced calcium response in the chloroplast stroma Plants rely on water and light for photosynthesis, but water droplets on leaves can focus light into high-intensity spots, risking photodamage. Excess…

What started as a 'funky' observation back in 2017 while visiting the lab of @labcosta.bsky.social, and after skilfull execution of Dominic Kuang, Shanna Romand, and many more, now found a home in Current Biology. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Interested in plant Ca2+ imaging? If you have (or are about to earn) a PhD, consider joining our team at La Statale (UNIMI) as a Postdoc. A great opportunity to grow your expertise in a vibrant research environment!
Feel free to contact me to discuss applications to the MSCA

Quantifying Plant Biology with Fluorescent Biosensors pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40153610/

A very nice Review from Jones' lab www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/people/alexa...

Cryo-EM structures of Arabidopsis CNGC1 and CNGC5 reveal molecular mechanisms underlying gating and calcium selectivity - Nature Plants Using cryo-EM structures and electrophysiological analysis of Arabidopsis CNGC1 and CNGC5, this study characterizes plant CNGCs as a class of CNBD channels that feature Ca2+ selectivity and are not re...

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

Hydrogen Sulfide 🌋👃
modulates Flagellin-Induced Stomatal Immunity 🍃🦠

New preprint led by Denise Scuffi
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
@labcosta.bsky.social @jan-oleniemeier.bsky.social

A bi-kinase module sensitizes and potentiates plant immune signaling Mutual activation of a Ca2+ sensing bi-kinase module potentiates NADPH oxidase activation to facilitate systemic immunity.

Please read here about our collaborative work with Ag Kudla @uni-muenster.de on the phosphocode of these two Calcium-dependent kinases. With the power of MS-based functional #proteomics www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Abiotic Stress‐Induced Chloroplast and Cytosolic Ca2+ Dynamics in the Green Alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii Ca2+ signalling has a key role in the perception of environmental stimuli and cellular responses to stresses. Here we show that Ca2+ transients in Chlamydomonas are differently triggered by abiotic s...

Wandering what happens to Chlamydomonas chloroplast and cytosolic Ca2+ dynamics in response to different abiotic stresses?
Our latest work about that is out now! 🦠🔬
A big thank to all the people involved @labcosta.bsky.social, Glen Wheeler and Matteo Ballottari.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from
@labcosta.bsky.social! Wishing you joy, success, and good luck for an amazing 2025!

Honored to celebrate 6 years of collaborating with @PlantCellEnvir as an Associate Editor! Over 130 handled works later, I’m thrilled to receive this certificate of appreciation. Huge thanks to the team and contributors who made this journey so rewarding! 🌱📜

Bravo Nick...😊😊

An old video of calcium waves in Arabidopsis that still looks stunning... 🌱✨ #PlantScience #CalciumWaves"

Designing artificial fluorescent proteins and biosensors by genetically encoding molecular rotor-based amino acids Nature Chemistry - The toolbox of artificial fluorescent proteins can be expanded by engineering mimics of the molecular rotor-based fluorophore found in the green fluorescent protein (GFP) into...

Designing artificial fluorescent proteins and biosensors by genetically encoding molecular rotor-based amino acids
rdcu.be/d1SrQ

Utilizing the mutant library to investigate the functional characterization of GhGLR3.4 regulating jasmonic acid to defense pest infestation This study employed a mutant library derived from the cotton GLR gene family to elucidate the role of the ion channel gene GhGLR3.4 in regulating intracellular calcium ion concentration and influenci...

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

web.cvent.com/event/448810...

NEWS & VIEWS: Follow the calcium road: Conserved mechanisms of growth and development in Marchantia polymorpha (Jiawen Chen, Erin Cullen) doi.org/10.1093/plph...

I am thrilled to have contributed to this publication with Prof. Kohchi Takayuki's lab! 🎉 First author Megumi Iwano
@KyotoU_News
MID1-COMPLEMENTING ACTIVITY regulates cell proliferation & development via Ca²⁺ signaling in Marchantia polymorpha. 🌱
academic.oup.com/plphys/artic...

Hello dear...I am also here...let's start with this:

Check out this timelapse of growing Arabidopsis leaves expressing a Calcium sensor. Nature's signal in motion! 🌱 #PlantScience #CalciumSignaling #Arabidopsis"