Kaisa Kajala

CsPLTs are expressed in cucumber root and shoot apices.

PLETHORA3/7 controls cucumber shoot architecture

📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
by Kerstens et al.

@WileyPlantSci @merijnkerstens.bsky.social @violawillemsen.bsky.social

Someone got Cas9-Turbo to work. It's like basically Y1H but with proteomics. It however requires transgenic plant expressing Cas9-Turbo and gRNAs, which is still cumbersome for many plants that are not Arabidopsis. #PlantSciences

Are you, or do you know someone that is excited to do a PhD in plant biology. We are happy to offer a position to explore physiology, gene regulatory networks and wild species. Come join our team in a stimulating scientific environment at the University of Groningen!
werkenbij.rug.nl/vacature/phd...

Exciting! Congratulations and enjoy the day @almeidasilvaf.bsky.social!

Were you considering applying to the 2026 GRC on Salt and Water Stress? Do you want to give an oral presentation? We are over 60% full, so apply soon! Consideration for oral presentations from submitted abstracts will occur on March 9, 2026. www.grc.org/salt-and-wat... Please re-post!

PhD position open with an excellent supervisor and in a very warm, fun research group! Highly recommended!

#plantscience
#suberinteresting

Photo of a wall calendar showing Jan 2026 and transmission electron microscopy image of cell wall lamellae suberin.

It may be forever January 2026 in my office from now on. 🌱🔬

TEM image of suberin lamella by @riannekluck.bsky.social

#suberinteresting

Bean root system, text: "Dig into the latest in root and rhizosphere science: Mini Symposium of the ISRR, January 28th 2026"

Rooting for roots?
#PlantScience

Join us online for the Mini Symposium of the International Society of Root Research @rootscientists.bsky.social

Register here for free:

tinyurl.com/yzeddrjx

Programme👇

I'm very happy to announce that starting February 2026, I'm joining Utrecht University as an Assistant Professor!!!

Reading this as a pre-print a bit over a year ago really changed the way how I think about plant cell/organ types - great to see the final version in press. Congratulations to all authors for the wonderful, thought-provoking work!

🧵 Just out in Cell after more than 10 years in the making!

🎓 www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Plants and animals evolve radically different body plans.

Do they also operate under fundamentally different molecular evolutionary constraints during organ formation?

@cellpress.bsky.social

🚨We’re hiring! Please help spread the word!
Our lab at @TheSainsburyLab is recruiting a pre-doctoral intern to work on plant immunity research. Ideal for those who are planning to pursue a PhD and seeking research experience. tatsuyanobori.com

A cis-regulatory element of the PHYTOCHROME A gene confers the submergence escape capacity for amphibious plants - Nature Communications How did amphibious plants evolve the convergent strategy to escape submergence by fast shoot elongation? Yang et al. reveal the pivotal role of a cis-regulatory element in the PHYA promoter in promoti...

Cool paper #plantscience
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Last week I saw @leonardojo.bsky.social present a summary of his postdoc work, and I was so impressed about his ability to draw overarching themes and draw ideas from his various postdoc projects.

It made me contemplate the importance of taking a step back and look at the big picture. (1/4)

So, this is to say that I am one proud mentor and enthusiastic fan of @leonardojo.bsky.social, and I look forward to seeing his future research output!

(4/4)

This also reminded me that I may have forgotten to celebrate the fact here that he was awarded a prestigious Dutch Talent Program VENI fellowship earlier this year!

This allows him to carry out independent research on his chosen topic, pioneer factors! 🎉

www.wur.nl/en/news/hitc...

(3/4)

Spatiotemporal transcriptional networks control the plasticity of chickpea root exodermis Abscisic acid (ABA) regulates plant responses to stress and influences the differentiation of root barrier cell types, such as the endodermis and exodermis. Despite the importance of the exodermis in ...

The projects were on

1) chickpea exodermis with me (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...)

2) effector-triggered immunity with @dinglab.bsky.social (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...)

3) far-red responses with @ronaldpierik.bsky.social.

What a crazy diverse set to see shared biology in! (2/4)

Last week I saw @leonardojo.bsky.social present a summary of his postdoc work, and I was so impressed about his ability to draw overarching themes and draw ideas from his various postdoc projects.

It made me contemplate the importance of taking a step back and look at the big picture. (1/4)

Congratulations to both of you! 🥂🍾

Are you interested in using synthetic approaches to promote arbuscular mycorrhiza symbiosis? Then our PostDoc position may be for you: jobs.mpimp-golm.mpg.de/jobposting/b...

The cover of Vol 76 | Issue 21 | 2025 of the Journal of Experimental Botany, Special Issue: Tomato. Purple banners border the top and bottom of the page and in the centre is an image of a ripe tomato fruit on its truss (credit: Marine Honoré).

📣 Check out the Journal of Experimental Botany's newest special issue 📣

🍅 Tomato - Issue 21 of 2025 🍅
📘 Guest edited by Yves Gibon, Diane Beckles, Sonia Osorio & Hiroshi Ezura

🔗 academic.oup.com/jxb...

#JXBspecialissues #PlantScience 🧪 @sebiology.bsky.social @dianemariabeckles.bsky.social

Fig. 2 (shortened, full legend in paper): Perturbations of SlMYB41, SlMYB92, and SlWRKY71 expression affect the suberization of tomato exodermis. (A) Percentage of cross-sections showing a non-suberized, an early suberized (suberin in <50% of exodermal cells), or a late suberized (suberin in >50% of exodermal cells) exodermis phenotype in hairy root cultures of the control (empty vector), CRISPR knockout lines [Slmyb41-ko, Slmyb92-ko, Slwrky71-ko(4), and Slwrky71-ko(5)], and overexpressing lines (SlMYB41-OX, SlMYB92-OX, and SlWRKY71-OX). The number above the bars represents the number (n) of individual roots examined in each genotype. Asterisks denotes statistically significant differences between each line in comparison with the empty vector control, whereas n.s. indicates no significant differences (P<0.05, χ2 test).

🧬 🍅 SPECIAL ISSUE RESEARCH 🍅 🧬

MYB and WRKY transcription factors collaboratively regulate suberin biosynthesis in the tomato root exodermis. Antagonistic interactions may fine-tune suberization or act as a brake on overaccumulation - Jo et al.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...

#PlantScience 🧪

Check out this #Root methods course organised at Aarhus University in May 2026! Register using the link below.

phd.tech.au.dk/for-phd-stud...

Mariana Artur sitting down at a desk to sign a PhD diploma. Man wearing formal academic gown standing next to her.

Mariana Silva Artur and Annika Liefferink standing in a stair case at Wageningen Omnia building, Annika holding her brand new PhD thesis tube.

Flashback also to September when @marianasartur.bsky.social had her first co-promoted PhD graduate from @pph-wur.bsky.social! First photo shows her signing the PhD diploma, and second with the freshly minted PhD. So happy to see mentees become excellent mentors! 💚

Mariana Artur sitting down at a desk to sign a PhD diploma. Man wearing formal academic gown standing next to her.

Mariana Silva Artur and Annika Liefferink standing in a stair case at Wageningen Omnia building, Annika holding her brand new PhD thesis tube.

Flashback also to September when @marianasartur.bsky.social had her first co-promoted PhD graduate from @pph-wur.bsky.social! First photo shows her signing the PhD diploma, and second with the freshly minted PhD. So happy to see mentees become excellent mentors! 💚

Super proud to see my first postdoc @marianasartur.bsky.social publishing super cool work from her own lab! 🌱⏳

#PlantScience‍

Screenshot of this paper: Husain I. Agha, Laura M. Shannon, Peter L. Morrell, Unloading potatoes: Potato breeding moves forward with only half the genome, Cell Genomics, Volume 3, Issue 6, 2023

🥔 🌱 Reading about potato breeding I learned: "there has been no genetic gain in potato yield over the last 100 years"
🤯
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fa...
I also have a plant evo-devo PhD opportunity open to study the evolutionary origins of female meiosis with me ^^.

Deadline Thursday 27th November, so if you know anyone who might be interested, please do let them know!
#Plantscience

Auxin transport positions stem cells in the vascular cambium during normal development and regeneration | PNAS The vascular cambium contains bifacial stem cells producing secondary phloem in one and secondary xylem to the opposite direction. In Arabidopsis r...

By combining molecular genetics with cell-ablation experiments, we found that vascular cambium stem cells and xylem-identity cells form an interchangeable unit, a stem cell niche. Meticulous work by @xixizhang9001.bsky.social, Ondrej Smetana, Jing Zhang & Xiaoyu Wang 1/x www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

EPS Summer School | Universiteit Utrecht We would like to invite you to join the PhD Summer School that has an attractive program with many expert speakers in the field of environmental signaling in plants. In addition to the invited speaker...

Great opportunity for Early Career Researchers - Utrecht PhD Summer School 2026!

eps.sites.uu.nl