Thanks a lot Ren! Happy you like it.

It was nice to see you at MPMI ☺️too bad we did not have the opportunity to talk more.

Many thanks to @teamthomma.bsky.social for inspiring discussions and to all co-authors for their important contributions: @alvalentinawolf.bsky.social, @antonkraege.bsky.social, @wolki95.bsky.social, @jinyi-zhu.bsky.social, @yukiyosato.bsky.social and others not on @bsky.app.

So, many effectors have ancestral antimicrobial properties. These were retained over evolution while host manipulation traits evolved. Today, they can still function to antagonize competitors and, thus, they have dual functions.

Are the antimicrobial properties still relevant? Using a gnotobiotic system, we show that the Vd424Y effector contributes to colonization in presence of a plant-associated microbiota.

One of the 5 effectors, Vd424Y, carries a nuclear localization signal necessary for immunomodulation in planta. The NLS was only acquired recently. Thus, plant-colonizing fungi repurposed antimicrobials to suppress host immunity.

Strikingly, among most conserved antimicrobials, many effectors previously shown to manipulate plant immunity occurred. We selected 5 and all of them antagonized microbial growth in vitro!

The broad conservation of fungal antimicrobials suggests ancient origins. Of course, fungi roamed the earth and competed with other microbes before land plants or animals existed. Ancient weapons worth keeping during evolution?

With AMAPEC, we now analyzed phylogenetically diverse fungi with divergent lifestyles and found that fungi secrete lots of antimicrobials. Interestingly, quite some are widely conserved throughout the Fungal Kingdom.

First challenge: how to find novel fungal antimicrobial effectors. To do so, we developed AMAPEC, an accurate predictor of antimicrobial activity tailored to fungal effectors.
More info and links ⬇ bsky.app/profile/team...

Fungal effectors are mainly seen as pathogen-secreted proteins that mediate plant colonization by manipulating host physiology (immunity). Recently, some were shown to be antimicrobial & manipulate plant microbiota during infection.
State of the art in this review ⬇ bsky.app/profile/mesn...

The broad conservation of fungal antimicrobials suggests ancient origins. Of course, fungi roamed the earth and competed with other microbes before land plants or animals existed. Ancient weapons worth keeping during evolution?

With AMAPEC, we now analyzed phylogenetically diverse fungi with divergent lifestyles and found that fungi secrete lots of antimicrobials. Interestingly, quite some are widely conserved throughout the Fungal Kingdom.

First challenge: how to find novel fungal antimicrobial effectors. To do so, we developed AMAPEC, an accurate predictor of antimicrobial activity tailored to fungal effectors.
More info and links in this thread ⬇ bsky.app/profile/team...