Yukiyo Sato

RNA splicing generates a functionally specialized Rep protein isoform in geminiviruses — enabling timely control of the viral cycle. Strikingly, similar strategies might have evolved in DNA viruses infecting different kingdoms: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Spearheaded by @delphinem-p.bsky.social!

📣 12 open postdoc positions in @ceplas.bsky.social !! www.ceplas.eu/en/training-...

We @teamthomma.bsky.social look for a postdoc on The Secret Lives of Soil-Borne Fungal Pathogens: Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Intermicrobial Interactions in Soils (see project 4)

📣 Our latest story just dropped on bioRxiv:: A structurally unique effector shared between Verticillium dahliae and Fusarium oxysporum is involved in cotton defoliation and virulence on other hosts www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵

A permanent position as a research scientist is opened in our team! We look for a plant physiologist with expertise in plant / microorganism interactions to identify plant susceptibility factors to fungal disease. Please forward!

🎉 Yesterday we enjoyed the glorious defence of @gabriellapetti.bsky.social of her @unicologne.bsky.social PhD thesis on "Homologous antimicrobial proteins in plants and fungi: conserved mechanisms shaping the plant microbiota" #proudPI #PhDone ..mind the crown modeled after the Ave1 NMR structure!😍

Sharing our lab’s first publication! Probing clinical isolates of Cryptococcus, a disease-causing fungus of the lungs and brain, we found multiple heat-mobile elements that ‘jump’ in the genome at body temperature (!) with the ability to drive adaptive changes. journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

Targeting of the barley cell-surface receptor SRF3 by the Blumeria hordei effector AVRA13 overlaps with AVRA13 recognition by MLA and the induction of NLR-mediated cell death. Pathogens secrete effector proteins to promote virulence. Despite their recognition by barley Mla resistance genes, the structurally-related Blumeria hordei ( Bh ) AVRA effectors are maintained in the...

Wei Shi @wshisky.bsky.social & Merle‘s work is online. Wei really pushed this work from scratch and Merle linked it to MLA diversification…3rd (co-)first author paper in her PhD. Very proud PI!
And only possible through collaboration with G. Döhlemann, @grandpahiro.bsky.social &, Matt Platre. (1/x)

Facultative heterochromatin mediated by core and accessory chromosome-encoded H3K27-specific methyltransferases controls virulence in a fungal phytopathogen Abstract. In many fungal phytopathogens, infection is regulated by accessory genomic regions enriched in facultative heterochromatin, but the precise role

Beyond excited to see this work finally out in @narjournal.bsky.social! We show that epigenetic modifiers on fungal accessory chromosomes can contribute to the overall epigenetic profile. Many thanks to @gomezlucia93.bsky.social and our other amazing collaborators 👏🏻

academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

We are looking far and wide for this position! So if you are motivated, interested in academia, and want to explore the world of plant-virus interaction, we are ALSO happy to host you for a PhD! More detail below🔽☘️🦠

The Clavel Group is recruiting a new postdoc for two possible projects dealing with plant-virus interactions and selective autophagy! More (wordy) details below ⬇️🌱🦠

🚨We’re hiring! Please help spread the word!
Our lab at @TheSainsburyLab is recruiting a pre-doctoral intern to work on plant immunity research. Ideal for those who are planning to pursue a PhD and seeking research experience. tatsuyanobori.com

📣 Major milestone achieved! First @teamthomma.bsky.social @unicologne.bsky.social PhD student graduated 🎉! Congratulations to @wolki95.bsky.social for a stellar defence of a thesis on antimicrobial effectors of Verticillium dahliae that drive niche adaptation #proudPI #PhDone

Now officially published in Current Biology 🥳🥳 @mfseidl.bsky.social @binfutrecht.bsky.social

www.cell.com/current-biol...

AGO5 restricts virus vertical transmission in plant gametophytes The propagation of a viral infection from a host parent to its progeny is known as vertical transmission, or seed transmission in plants. It allows viral infections to rapidly spread locally via polle...

Preprint alert! It is my great pleasure to announce the first manuscript from the lab, a story that started @gmivienna.bsky.social and was mainly accomplished by the intrepid @gesahoffmann.bsky.social at @mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social. A brief thread with our findings
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Three-dimensional genome architecture connects chromatin structure and function in a major wheat pathogen - BMC Biology Background Genome spatial organization plays a fundamental role in biological function across all domains of life. While the principles of nuclear architecture have been well-characterized in animals ...

Our paper on Zymoseptoria tritici 3D genome organization is officially out! @iglavincheska.bsky.social
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

New preprint: 🚀🧬 Starship in the genome of the lichen fungus Xanthoria. Discovery of giant transposons Starships challenged what we thought we knew about fungal genomes. But what about Starships in #lichen fungi? Let us present Tangerine! 🖥️ 🧪 🦠 🧫 #SymbioSky doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Autophagy restricts symbiosis-associated cell death and regulates colonization by Serendipita indica in Arabidopsis Autophagy acts as a pro-survival mechanism in plant roots during beneficial fungal colonization by restricting fungal proliferation and immunometabolic cel

My former colleague Patricia Zecua, me and the Zuccaro group published a new story about how autophagy restricts cell death and regulates root colonization by beneficial fungi:

academic.oup.com/plphys/advan...

The virulence gene ToxB is both amplified and disrupted by transposons in the wheat pathogen Pyrenophora tritici-repentis ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, https://ror.org/051dzs374 Alberta Grain Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commissio...

Our latest pre-print on TE-mediated tandem duplication of the ToxB effector is now online...still a puzzle for us but we think it is in a Helitron! Together with amazing collaborators, Reem Aboukhaddour and Ryan Gourlie #TE #fungi
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Historic transposon mobilisation waves create distinct pools of adaptive variants in a major crop pathogen - Nature Communications In this study, the authors analysed a large genomic dataset to trace how jumping genes shaped the global spread of a major wheat pathogen and reveal bursts of activity over decades that drove adaptati...

TEs aren’t just genomic parasites, they’re also engines of genomic novelty.

Our new study with ~2,000 Z. tritici genomes shows repeated TE mobilization waves during global expansion.

With @danielcroll.bsky.social & @guidopuccetti.bsky.social

🧬 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#TEworldwide

the top half shows two panels with microscopy images. Left is a light-microscopy image of a group of algal cells. The cells are round with different sizes. Two arrows point at sporangia: one looks as if someone stuffed 8 footballs in a thin elastic bag. The other is perfectly round and contains many small spores within. The right panel shows the same group of cells, but in fluorescent microscopy, where green color shows chloroplasts. In each cell the chloroplasts are globular with small lobes sticking out. The bottom half shows a photo of Xanthoria lichen - bright yellow and leafy growing on a tree branch

Our paper on the #genome of the Trebouxia #photobiont from Xanthoria is now out in @newphyt.bsky.social! Check below for a near-chromosome level assembly, secretome analysis, evidence of ancient HGT, and transcriptomic comparison of the alga in symbiosis and in pure culture
doi.org/10.1111/nph.70728

GH25 lysozyme mediates tripartite interkingdom interactions and microbial competition on the plant leaf surface | PNAS Microbial communities inhabiting plants have emerged as crucial factors in regulating plant health and defense against disease-causing pathogens. T...

🚨My very first (co-)first author paper got published in @pnas.org 🥳

We describe the tripartite interkingdom interaction between a yeast, the oomycete pathogen Albugo laibachii and a bacterium, mediated by a GH25 lysozyme 🦠

Thanks to everyone involved!

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🛑Exciting update from our work with @pierremarcdelaux.bsky.social team on the ericoid mycorrhizal symbiosis❗❗

🔥New results support a conserved three-gene module and master regulator for nutrient-responsive intracellular accommodation of fungal symbionts🤯

Check the nice thread below👇🏼
#plantscience

My new Emmy Noether Group is recruiting!

🔬 Two PhD positions in plant pathogen evolution

🧬 Start: April 2026 (flexible)

📍 Dept. of Phytopathology & Plant Protection @rstam.bsky.social @uni-kiel.de

⏰ Apply by 15 Dec 2025

🔗 More info: www.uni-kiel.de/personal/de/...

Do get in touch or share 😊

Postdoc position in my lab in Cologne starting early next year or latest in spring to get this exciting project started.

jobportal.uni-koeln.de/ausschreibun...

I’m very happy to see my fist article now officially published 🥳 great work by my partner in crime @wolki95.bsky.social and the rest of @teamthomma.bsky.social! Find it here: doi.org/10.1111/nph.... or have a look at the 🧵⬇️

Undermining the cry for help: the phytopathogenic fungus Verticillium dahliae secretes an antimicrobial effector protein to undermine host recruitment of antagonistic Pseudomonas bacteria During pathogen attack, plants recruit beneficial microbes in a ‘cry for help’ to mitigate disease development. Simultaneously, pathogens secrete effectors to promote host colonisation through vario...

📣 Now announcing the journal publication 📄 of our work in @newphyt.bsky.social on how Verticillium undermines the plant's 🌱 "cry for help": terrific work by @antonkraege.bsky.social & @wolki95.bsky.social doi.org/10.1111/nph....

1/ Ever needed to annotate TEs in a fungal genome, but didn't know where to start?

We have released #MycoMobilome, a community-focused non-redundant database of transposable element consensus sequences for the fungal kingdom, constructed from >4,000 fungal genomes!

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

Very excited to see the final version of our kingdom-scale fungal genome defense manuscript out in @plosbiology.org !

This work has been a major project of @tbadet.bsky.social during his time in our lab.

We hope to stimulate much more exciting work on fungal TEs.

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

📣 New @biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social preprint, another joint-venture of @wolki95.bsky.social & @antonkraege.bsky.social, co-directed by @nicksnelders.bsky.social. Here’s a 🧵

EvoChromo: Evolutionary approaches to research in chromatin Chromatin is the complex of DNA, RNA and protein that is found making up the chromosomes in eukaryotic cells. Chromatin is essential for proper genome function and is involved in chromosome segregati…

Please re-post:

Interested in chromatin and its evolution? Good news! There's still time to join us in beautiful Catalonia (9-12 Dec) to discuss eukaryotic, bacterial, archaeal, and viral chromatin and how it all hangs together meetings.embo.org/event/24-evo...

Abstract deadline: 30 September