Athira Nair

Kick off of the national symposium on Molecular intricacies of plant associated microbes (MIPAM) 2026 @icgeb.bsky.social, Delhi, India today. A great many interesting findings at a non hierarchical space... It was cool to see smart people and be among them... Looking forward to day two and three

Role of molecular “gatekeeper” uncovered, allowing nitrogen-fixing bacteria to enter plant roots | ENSA A new publication from ENSA researchers and international collaborators has uncovered role of SYFO2 protein that helps plants initiate partnerships with beneficial soil microbes.

🔬 ENSA research uncovers SYFO2, a molecular gatekeeper that reorganizes actin in legume root hairs to allow rhizobial entry. The team showed that tomato can activate its own SYFO2 pathway, revealing deep evolutionary roots of symbiosis @science.org @ottlab.bsky.social @pierremarcdelaux.bsky.social

Congrats Ritu and all the aurhors

bioRxiv: AMBER and GOLD: Polycistronic Genes for Betaxanthin Production in Plants (2026) Genetically encoded pigments are powerful visual reporters and creative tools for biology, yet in plants the palette of pigment biosynthesis genes has remained largely limited to red betacyanins encoded by RUBY. Here we develop and characterize three new polycistronic constructs AMBER_v1, AMBER_v2, and GOLD that contain betalain biosynthesis enzymes to produce yellow, fluorescent betaxanthins in plant tissues. These tools expand the palette of publicly available pigmentation genes for use in plant research, education, and floral design.

New Preprint: AMBER and GOLD: Polycistronic Genes for Betaxanthin Production in Plants (2026)
https://www.tsl.ac.uk/publications/162209

My poster on flower bioengineering at the #AIEBaB26 conference in Bristol last week 🌹 🧬 ✨

Interesting phenomena in pop and evo genetics, when you have loci or even sequences associated with a trait, that is considered generalizable information. Once you know the actual function of these genes their perceived generalizability inherently decreases. Even if the only change is knowing fnxn.

In my thesis, I have combined mol bio, Quantification of phytohormones and calcium transcriptomics,confocal imaging and PPIs to explore the integrated role of calcium and phytohormone signalling for plant immunity in the context of symbiosis. Looking forward to the defense and publications!

Ph.D. thesis submitted!! Thanks to two fantastic supervisors, Dr. Jyothilakshmi Vadassery at National institute of plant genome research, New Delhi,India and Prof. Praveen Verma, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India for guiding me throughout and mentoring me to PhD completion

Check out our new pre print here that uncover the role of plant sugar transporters in sustaining S. indica (fondly called as Piri) endosymbiosis in roots!!!

Discovery of functional NLRs using expression level, high-throughput transformation and large-scale phenotyping Nature Plants - Rapid discovery of functional resistance genes is enabled by a high-expression signature and high-throughput transformation. This approach identified 31 new resistance genes for...

Super excited to see our work on the NLRseek program finally published 🥳 Here we identify new NLRs against major wheat pathogens and present a pipeline for NLR identification. Huge thank you to all of the co-authors for bringing this work together! @matthewmoscou.bsky.social rdcu.be/eIGvv

Our latest on brassinosteroid signaling: Ligand binding spectrum, specificity & selectivity of all BR receptors in Arabidopsis. By @albertocaregnato.bsky.social , @hmchen93.bsky.social and our great chemistry collaborators Mirek Kvasnica, Jana Oklestkova and Mirek Strnad.

Two more articles in our series on 'Scientific mobility in microbiology' are online now.

Read @edelplopez.bsky.social and @tatsuyanobori.bsky.social's mobility-related experiences and their insights here: authors.elsevier.com/a/1lTnY,L%7E... & authors.elsevier.com/a/1lTnY_,2Ci...

New @ISMPMI Board Members #DreamTeam 😍 🇬🇧 🇨🇳 🇨🇦 🇦🇷 🇩🇪 🇰🇪

Definitely worth a read.

Big thanks to @KamounLab for highlighting key messages! 🙌

Helped us see more clearly how science should be done—beyond journals and impact factors.

Thanks again @Edel_PLopez for your insights 🙏.

Jones and Dangl” lock — what are the odds? Jeff says he doesn’t know about it. Whether it’s “JJ” @jonathandgjones.bsky.social or someone else, it’s a fitting tribute to the duo that gave us the zigzag model back in 2001. Jeff got this pic from @derekseveri.bsky.social #2025ISMPMI #PlantImmunity

At the end of 3rd day at #ISMPMI2025 , it's been around 60 talks, about 400 posters, a lot of science and a great community of science enthusiasts... Stay tuned for second poster session and rest of the congress

Connections are in action in Cologne! At #2025ISMPMI, the poster sessions aren’t just about groundbreaking research—they’re about meeting peers, collaboration, and sharing ideas that move plant-microbe science forward.

Full poster hours here: bit.ly/44LqCvc

#plantscience #networking

Full room for @keehoonsohn.bsky.social presentation #2025ismpmi

Excellent stories and beautiful microscopy today from Sebastian Schornack and Uta Paszkowski #2025MPMI. On the topic of strategies of microbial colonization, chaired by Armin Djamei and Amey Redkar.

#2025ISMPMI Hailin Jin gives a plenary how cross kingdom RNAi has been found across all kind of organismic interactions.

#2025ISMPMI turnout is massive!!!!