Up and ready! Find me at P-267 today for some molecular evolution and NLR biology! 🥬💻

You can also find the poster and preprint below 👇🏻

#2025ISMPMI

14/ And finally, a teaser: We're gearing up to release deep-learning-based Helixer annotations and NLR sequences for 230 superasterid genomes on @datadryad & @ZENODO_ORG! Stay tuned.

11/ Our evolutionary model? Sensor clades relying on the conserved NRC0 tend to have lower copy numbers and slower diversification—likely constrained. But those using other NRC helpers often expand dramatically, with higher copy numbers and greater diversification.

10/ Mapping these sites onto predicted structures revealed distinct patterns: In Clade 1, they cluster in the CC domain, but in Clade 3, they dominate the LRR concave side. Coevolution happens at the LRRs but also elsewhere!

9/ Next, we tested each clade for positive selection via PAML. While helpers show no strong signals, sensor clades tell a different story. Clade 3 stands out with 48 positively selected sites (mostly on the LRR), while Clade 1 has just 5, and Clade 2 has none!

8/ Check this! Here is a phylogenetic overview of the sensor and helper AlphaFold 3 models. Phylogeny + Structural modeling! 🆒

7/ Using AlphaFold 3, we found that NRC helpers can be modelled as resistosome-like complexes. But here's the twist—lettuce NRC sensors don’t form high-confidence oligomeric models, similar to what we saw in monocot NLR pairs!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

6/ Big finding: Lettuce has a functional NRC network, and for the first time, we see a phylogenetic shift in helper dependency! Clade 1 sensors signal only through NRC0, clade 2 uses both helpers, and clade 3 relies solely on Ast-LsatNRC1.

5/ Digging deeper—lettuce has two NRC type helpers: NRC0 (conserved in Asterids) and another, unique to Asterales, called Ast-LsatNRC1. Lettuce NRC sensors then split into three distinct phylogenetic clades.

4/ We reannotated 40 Solanales + 29 Asterales genomes with the AI tool Helixer (see post #14). These lineages diverged ~100 MYA! Unlike Solanales (~50% of all NLRs), the NRC network shows much less expansion in Asterales (~6%).

3/ The NRC network is an NLR immune network providing resistance to various pathogens in Asterid plants. We've studied its expansion and function in Solanales, but what about Asterales—especially in lettuce?

2/ Lettuce is in the aster family #Asterales and a plant immunity model since the ’90s. Blake Meyers, @michelmorelab and colleagues classified NLR phylogenetic clades and introduced concepts like type I & II based on evolutionary rates.