Thank you, Basti! ☺️ Grateful for your help!

Thank you to all collaborators — I'm really grateful for all the expertise, guidance, and hard work! A special thanks to @matthewmoscou.bsky.social, @pdchristine.bsky.social, @jackrhodes.bsky.social, @samwalds.bsky.social, Jan Sklenar, Hyeran Moon, and Cyril Zipfel. (8/8)

We predict that the EXO70FX clade has largely lost exocyst association and represents a novel acquisition that emerged during Poales diversification for immunity 🌾🦠🍄. (7/8)

We found that in addition to lacking structural requirements for exocyst complex formation, EXO70FX12 lacks exocyst subunit associations in yeast, Nicotiana benthamiana, and barley. (6/8)

We next used structural predictions to identify an unusual pattern in EXO70FX members. The N-terminal regions are highly divergent and often truncated compared to yeast EXO70 and other EXO70s shown to interact with the exocyst! (5/8)

EXO70FX12 belongs to the EXO70FX clade, which is found only in Poales, an order of monocots that includes all agriculturally important cereals 🌽🌾. EXO70FX has several striking features, including the most extreme degree of expansion and greatest intra-clade divergence. (4/8)

EXO70s are conserved across eukaryotes and generally serve as subunits within the exocyst, an octameric protein complex integral to vesicle trafficking. Unlike yeast and animals, plants carry many copies of diverse EXO70s, which experience lineage-specific expansions. (3/8)