Ben Field 🌿

Fluorescence microscopy image of a spherical cluster of chloroplasts, showing magenta-stained interiors surrounded by bright green outlines against a black background.

Moss (Physcomitrium patens) protoplasts (wallless cells) transformed with chloroplast envelope protein tagged with mGFP (green). The chlorophyll autofluorescence is in magenta.
The protrusions of the chloroplast envelope are called stromules.
#microscopymonday, #plantcells, #plantmicroscopy, #moss

Chloroplast ABC peptide transporters TAP1, NAP8, and ATH12 are essential for heat-induced peptide export and play a key role in thermotolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.05.709749v1

The cover of Vol 77 | Issue 5 | 2026 of the Journal of Experimental Botany, Special Issue: Energy Management: Molecular Mechanisms and Signaling. Yellow coloured banners border the top and bottom of the page and in the centre the image depicts a whiteboard illustration of the original concept behind the workshop ‘Plant Energy Management: Molecular Mechanisms and Signalling,’ held at UPSC, Sweden, in August 2024. The aim was to expand upon the original TOR meeting by focusing on the inputs and outputs of the core energy management machinery in a species-agnostic manner. (Credit: Benoît Menand, Johannes Hanson, and Vanessa Wahl.)

📣 Check out JXB's newest Special Issue 📣
📘 Issue 5 of 2026 📘

⚡🌿 Energy Management: Molecular Mechanisms and Signalling 🌿⚡

📘 Guest edited by Benoît Menand, Johannes Hanson & Vanessa Wahl

🔗 academic.oup.com/jxb...

#JXBspecialissues #PlantScience 🧪 SEBiology

The giant viruses surprised us at almost every turn of this project, but ultimately led us down a very rewarding path. Happy to share this work is now available online 🧪

Plastids, photosynthetic organelles in plants and algae, originated from cyanobacterial endosymbiosis. Here, Shrestha et al. use metagenomics to expand plastid diversity and provide evidence for two independent origins of secondary red-algal plastids.

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

🧬⚡ Call for abstracts & participants | GRC 2026 ⚡🧬

Together with Vamsi Mootha, I’m chairing the 2026 Gordon Research Conference on Mitochondria & Chloroplasts (July 19 - 24, 2026). We’d love to see your application.

Thread 🧵👇

Nice paper on photoendosymbiosis from my colleagues! Quevarac et al 2026 "Oxygen as a primary selective pressure for photosymbiosis evolution" Photosynthetic prey allow survival of Tetrahymena in anoxia while providing little or no carbon benefit #PlantScience www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Visit our Web site, register and subit your abstract for the next Plant Energy Mangement Meeting next july on Montpellier
pem26.cnrs.fr
@frannybarbs.bsky.social @lacombeb.bsky.social @franzificht.bsky.social @ccf-claire.bsky.social @msubrandizzilab.bsky.social @hatem-rouached.bsky.social

I am excited to offer a postdoctoral research position in my lab in Oxford studying the distribution of small RNAs during plant sexual reproduction. shorturl.at/7Goxt
Reposts appreciated!
Obligatory cat video to brighten your day. :-)

Announcement for photosynthesis 2026 Keynotes and Plenaries featuring black and white pictures of 12 scientists

🍃🎤🍃 Speaker announcement 🍃🎤🍃

Join our incredible line-up of Keynotes & Plenary Speakers at Photosynthesis 2026 in Liverpool this July!

✍️ Register & submit an abstract now
👉 photosynthesis2026.com

#plantscience 🧪 #ICPR26 #photosynthesis

A biosynthetic gene cluster for three post-chorismate pathways in Arabidopsis - Nature Plants Peng et al. identify a class of non-aromatic, chorismate-derived compounds, abundant in the roots of Arabidopsis thaliana. These compounds are made by a biosynthetic gene cluster comprising five adjac...

Cool! 🤩A new biosynthetic gene cluster in Arabidopsis! 🌿
#PlantScience
www.nature.com/articles/s41477-025-02185-5

A biosynthetic gene cluster for three post-chorismate pathways in Arabidopsis - Nature Plants Peng et al. identify a class of non-aromatic, chorismate-derived compounds, abundant in the roots of Arabidopsis thaliana. These compounds are made by a biosynthetic gene cluster comprising five adjac...

A biosynthetic gene cluster for three post-chorismate pathways in Arabidopsis www.nature.com/articles/s41... @natplants.nature.com

Dear Plant ECRs, don't miss this wonderful opportunity!

La médaille de l’innovation 2025 du CNRS est décernée à Alda Mari, Aziz Moqrich, Pascale Senellart et Alain Wagner. Ils illustrent la variété des recherches du CNRS et le rôle primordial que joue la recherche fondamentale dans le développement de technologies de rupture. 👏

Organelles do NOT have a single uniform pH.
And if you think they must, because “protons diffuse fast,” this paper is for you.
A thread on why that assumption is wrong; and what we found instead. 🧵 1/n

Engineering of plant responses to environmental stimuli provides opportunities to create climate-resistant crops.

Engineering plant stress responses to combat climate change
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#Commentary by Jones highlighting the recent work by Bowerman et al.
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Images of plants mock treated (left) or treated with molecule X57 (right). X57 treatment causes yellowing of the true leaves (upper row), and a reduction in photosynthetic capacity (lower row).

A synthetic molecule can trigger chloroplast de-differentiation via SAL1 inhibition and accumulation of PAP. Nice story! #PlantScience www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

screenshot of my post

Big new blogpost!

My guide to data visualization, which includes a very long table of contents, tons of charts, and more.

--> Why data visualization matters and how to make charts more effective, clear, transparent, and sometimes, beautiful.
www.scientificdiscovery.dev/p/salonis-gu...

On the EU parliament website: www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/pres...

EU einigt sich auf Lockerungen für gentechnisch veränderte Lebensmittel Für viele gentechnisch veränderte Lebensmittel soll es künftig keine Hinweispflicht mehr in Supermärkten geben. Darauf einigten sich Vertreter aus dem Europaparlament und dem Rat der EU-Länder.

Finally! The European Union allows the use of genome editing! 🌱🌾🫛🇪🇺🧬

www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/v...

Very excited to advertise 15 plant engineering biology PhD projects @biologyatyork.bsky.social @camplantsci.bsky.social @slcuplants.bsky.social @johninnescentre.bsky.social & University of Bristol. 🪴 🥬 🔧 🧬 Come join this new Plant BioDesign community!

www.findaphd.com/phds/?Keywor...

A non-canonical MPK3-ACTPK1-RbcS signalling module fine-tunes photosynthesis in rice Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades orchestrate diverse physiological processes, yet their role in photosynthetic regulation has remained largely unexplored. Here, we uncovers a non-canon...

A non-canonical MPK3-ACTPK1-RbcS signalling module fine-tunes photosynthesis in rice www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Thanks- I used my internal institution link, and now I can't change it!

Interesting things are happening in the dark! Salicylic acid and ROS signaling modulate hypocotyl elongation in darkness via NPR1 and EX1" www-science-org.insb.bib.cnrs.fr/doi/full/10....

Disequilibrium between chloroplast proton motive force and ATP levels in Arabidopsis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.12.687978v1

Hi EU 🌱 scientists, if you want to get Catch&Release 🎣vectors doi.org/10.1111/tpj.... hassle-free & pay only a small handling fee, please visits the so far little known great community resource to order DNA plasmids www.plasmids.eu kindly hosted by @dkfz.bsky.social & @telemanlab.bsky.social . Thx

A triose phosphate/phosphate translocator triggers antimicrobial immunity by exporting glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate from chloroplasts The chloroplast transporter AtTPT exports glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate to activate plant immune responses and confer resistance against diverse pathogens, re

A triose phosphate/phosphate translocator triggers antimicrobial immunity by exporting glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate from chloroplasts (Deng-Pan Zuo, Bin Wang, Yu-Zi Liu, Zheng-Song Chen, et al) doi.org/10.1093/plce... #PlantScience @aspbofficial

Few Plant science programmes are left in the UK and they are critical to train the next generation.
This move by @uniofnottingham.bsky.social goes against recommendations made in the recent PS Education manifesto. Big mistake! Sign the petition! nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

What we found: The chloroplast stress signalling nucleotide ppGpp helps plants tolerate high light.
When ppGpp levels rise, plants seem better prepared- not just by boosting photoprotection (NPQ), but by reprogramming metabolism and antioxidant defences to handle light stress.