David Hoey

Curious about the origin of development during the transition to multicellularity?

A very belated preprint alert: bit.ly/4rr2mHU
Reproduction emerges from ecological interactions at the onset of multicellularity.

A short 🧵 with lots of videos...

New paper from the lab. Important insights into the compartmentalisation of terpene biosynthesis in Marchantia oil body cells. #PlantScience #SynBio www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Looks like great work Katharina - congrats on the pre-print!

1/ ✨ New preprint alert ✨

It is my pleasure to share:
"Stepwise evolution of the developmental and symbiotic functions of DELLA in land plants"

Here we investigated the role of the single GRAS transcription factor DELLA in #MyMarchantia

doi.org/10.64898/202...

#PlantScience
A thread...

So I pleased to announce the conceptual spawn of FigTree: PearTree (acronym still to be finalised). If you want to dive right in it is hosted as a web app here: artic-network.github.io/peartree (click the “Example...” button for immediate candy and then click every button you can find).

Be part of OMGN! Open to all researchers with an interest in oomycetes, from molecular genetics & genomics to biology, population biology, and ecology, at either an experimental or a computational level. Investigators new to the field are always welcome oomycetes.com

Organ-specific expression of phosphate transporter, proton pump, and phosphatase genes in Marchantia polymorpha.

Rhizoids function as nutrient uptake organs in a non-vascular land plant

Kanno et al.

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

Rhizoid‐mediated phosphate uptake and internal transport in the non‐vascular plant Marchantia polymorpha Click on the article title to read more.

Rhizoid‐mediated phosphate uptake and internal transport in the non‐vascular plant Marchantia polymorpha nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Prototaxites Cooper et al. introduce Prototaxites, a mysterious extinct species that once towered over the land.

www.cell.com/current-biol... Our new quick guide to Prototaxites is out in @currentbiology.bsky.social !

Saskia Hogenhout standing in a seminar room

A wonderful seminar by @saskiahogenhout.bsky.social today! Thanks for making the trip north to @instmolplantsci.bsky.social

Historical botanical illustration of Lycopodium wildenowii, a species of clubmoss in the Pteridophyta group. The main image shows a detailed green stem with symmetrical, densely packed, small needle-like leaves branching horizontally. Below are additional detailed views: a close-up of a leaf cluster with a spore-bearing cone, enlarged individual spores, and cross-sectional views of stems and leaves. The illustration highlights the plant’s reproductive structures and foliage texture, providing scientific accuracy for identification and study of this lesser-known pteridophyte species.

🌴 Icones filicum ad eas potissimum species illustrandas destinatæ, quæ hactenus, vel in herbariis delituerunt prorsus incognitae, vel saltem nondum per icones botanicis innotuerunt..
Londini, Prostant Venales Apud Treuttel et Würtz, Treuttel Fil. et Richter; [etc., etc.]1831..

[Source]

Marchantia might seem an unlikely biotech crop, but it’s worth trying. In Aurore’s thesis, we pushed this concept by engineering the auronidins with MpMYB14 and using the pigments to dye cotton. It ended up giving a very unique and beautiful product. #PlantScience www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Recruitment of bifunctional regulator thermospermine to methylated ribosomes directs xylem fate Polyamines are often associated with ribosomes and are thought to stabilize their integrity. In Arabidopsis, the polyamine thermospermine (tSpm) affects xylem cell fate. tSpm induces translation of SU...

In @science.org this week, thermospermine affects ribosome methylation, which in turn regulates translation of xylem development proteins www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

#plantscience

Promotional banner for an Annals of Botany Focus Issue titled “Gnetales: Controversies of Seed Plant Evolution,” featuring green-toned text alongside a close-up photograph of Welwitschia mirabilis reproductive structures. Guest editors are listed, with the Annals of Botany logo at the bottom. Image credit: Stefan Little

📢🌿Annals of Botany invites submissions to the new focus issue "Gnetales - Controversies of Seed Plant Evolution", edited by guest editors Stefanie M. Ickert-Bond, Cecilia Zumajo-Cardona & Dimitry Sokoloff. (1/4)

#Gnetales #SeedPlantEvolution #EcoEvoDevo #PlantEvolution #Botany

Congrats Pierre-Marc, looking forward to reading through!

1/9 Our latest paper on immunity mechanisms in Marchantia just out @pnas.org ! 🔽

Close collaboration between our former PhD students @karimaelm.bsky.social and @chloe-beaulieu.bsky.social !

and the old gard @jacquet-chris.bsky.social @maximebonhomme.bsky.social

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

Not a Fungi after all: New clues to the identity of Prototaxites | Plantae The colonization of land by plants was a crucial event in Earth’s history that fundamentally transformed our planet’s surface. Early plants were small and structurally simple…

Plant Science Research Weekly --  Not a Fungi after all: new clues to the identity of Prototaxites (Science Advances) (Summary by Katarina Kurtović, katarinakurtovic.bsky.social) @sandyheth.bsky.social @transitionalform.bsky.social buff.ly/DwgUr2f

#PlantaePSRW

Blog - Bringing the wilderness to IMPS: Fieldwork in Scotland to generate a lycophyte living collection – likely UK’s largest! | Molecular Plant Sciences | Biology This blog was written by Diego Sanchez Ganfornina, of the Molecular Palaeobotany and Evolution Group (Hetherington Lab | Biology MPEG), collating considerations and reflections through his spring fiel...

A new blog is out on our website! 📄 Go check it out! Diego Sanchez Ganfornina from @sandyheth.bsky.social's lab talks about the field work he just completed in Scotland. He is trying to generate a lycophyte living collection – likely UK’s largest! 🌿 biology.ed.ac.uk/plant-scienc...

I love an accidental control!

Please share!
My group at @zmbp-tuebingen.bsky.social is offering a post-doctoral position (4 years). We look for a structural biologist with experience in Cryo-EM/Cryo-ET to investigate the mechanisms of host invasion by pathogenic fungi. Deadline February 28th!
uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...

#MAdLand Expression: adding sexual reproduction stages to the #Physcomitrium patens web tool. Great collaboration with @noefpbio.bsky.social @jandevries.bsky.social
@watertoland.bsky.social
Paper online in @theplantjournal.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1111/tpj....

Calling all OrthoFinder users!

We’ve just released GLADE, a tool to infer gene gains, losses, duplications, and ancestral genomes across a phylogeny.

GLADE runs directly on OrthoFinder results.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
github.com/lauriebelch/...

(1/10)

One of the most rarest and enigmatic bryophytes is now in the lab: Takakia lepidozioides. Thanks to the IMSC and Reski lab at Freiburg for maintaining them. #PlantScience

Thank you Sabine!

This is today - please come along if interested!

We’re looking for a postdoc to investigate Pseudomonas viridiflava virulence across diverse plant lineages. The 3yr position will combine plant and microbial molecular biology to understand core processes of infection - email for more info & apply online @ www.jic.ac.uk/vacancies/po...

Having fun with the microscope lately. Here’s one of my favourite artsy and slightly psychedelic shots of #Marchantia chloroplasts and a fluorescent membrane reporter. (z-stack maximum projection)

Auxin signaling dynamics during Ceratopteris male development in response to antheridiogen. The six panels contain confocal time-lapse images showing auxin signaling dynamics in Ceratopteris male gametophytes expressing the DR5v2::ntdTomato transgenic reporter, grown on conditioned fern medium. A male gametophyte was live-imaged every day from 1 to 6 days after germination (DAG). The panels show projection views of tdTomato signals (Fire LUT). The white arrowhead (top left panel) indicates the initial DR5 signal in the early developing prothallus, while yellow arrowheads (top row) indicate DR5 signals in developing rhizoids. Cyan arrowheads and white dashed circles highlight DR5 signaling dynamics during antheridium initiation and maturation. Color bars represent the relative intensity of DR5 signals in Fire LUT images, with low intensity shown in black, intermediate intensity in blue to red, and high intensity in yellow to white. The color scale applies to the entire prothallus but excludes the spore coat. Scale bars: 50 µm.

Ferns alternate between asexual #sporophyte & sexual free-living #gametophyte. This study uncovers the mechanism of male-to- #hermaphrodite conversion in the #fern #Ceratopteris, revealing a novel role for #auxin biosynthesis during #meristem formation @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4k5EcAU

Thanks to Sandy for excellent supervision, to the very supportive lab group (who are also very creative with making my hat!) and the examiners for their rigorous questioning!

Paul Kenrick, Laura Cooper and Sean McMahon

Sandy Hetherington and Laura Cooper holding a bottle of fizz with balloons

The very first Dr from the group! Congratulations Laura @transitionalform.bsky.social @instmolplantsci.bsky.social for passing your viva yesterday!! 🎉🎉
Thanks so much @seanhmcmahon.bsky.social and Paul Kenrick for acting as examiners