Infiltration of Agrobacterium tumefaciens in leaves of Nicotiana benthamiana has become a standard method for transient expression in plants. Like many Solanaceae species, N. benthamiana develops on i...

Plant intracellular immune receptors are widely deployed in breeding to protect crops from disease. In addition to nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat receptors (NLRs), tandem kinase proteins (TKPs...

The Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University (ZMBH) and the Faculty of Biosciences invite applications for a   Tenure Track Professors...

We analyzed transcriptional networks in barley under single and combined Fusarium head blight (FHB) and drought stress. We applied complementary Weighted Gene Correlation Network Analysis (WGCNA) to identify stress-associated gene co-expression modules and GENIE3 to infer gene regulatory networks (GRNs). Integration of these frameworks revealed strong overlaps between co-expression modules and GRN clusters, highlighting robust regulatory patterns. Key transcription factors (TFs) were identified based on their weighted node degrees, reflecting their connectivity within the network. Independent analysis of paired transcription factor binding sites in promoter regions further supported predicted regulatory interactions. Notably, WRKY TFs emerged as central regulators of FHB response, consistent with their known roles in defense and secondary metabolite biosynthesis, but did not appear in drought-associated contexts. For bHLH or NAC TFs, individual family members steered FHB or drought responses but not both. Our findings demonstrate the power of combining network inference and motif enrichment to identify candidate TFs controlling stress responses, providing a solid foundation for targeted functional validation. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.

We analyzed transcriptional networks in barley under single and combined Fusarium head blight (FHB) and drought stress. We applied complementary Weighted Gene Correlation Network Analysis (WGCNA) to i...

Romeijn et al. reveal that horizontal transposon transfer is widespread in fungi, contributing up to 70% of transposon content in some taxa. The authors uncover thousands of events across diverse line...

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 ...