Conor McClune

Today in Nature we report a systematic strategy to activate & identify gene sets in plants. We identify 8 new genes from the yew tree's Taxol biosynthetic pathway, enabling us to engineer tobacco with 17- & 20-gene pathways to Taxol precursors baccatin III & deBz-deoxy-Taxol #SingleCell #secmet 🧬🧪🌾

Plants can synthesize mimics of the insect molting hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) to defend against pests. In this preprint, we discover that two plant families independently evolved biosynthetic gene clusters to make 20E. Amazing team effort by my lab! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

In our new preprint, we report how clubmoss plants use an ancient biosynthetic pathway (>300 million years old!) to make huperzine A, an alkaloid with potential as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease. Great work by Eric Fields and @cyhkim.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Targeted DNA insertion remains a major bottleneck in plant engineering. We developed an avian R2 retrotransposon as an efficient plant genome editor to precisely insert large DNA payloads at targeted sites: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Congratulations to @kimuchenje03.bsky.social and the team! 🧵👇

Register Quick! #SBNP Early Bird & Talk Submission deadline fast approaching: 🗓️(Monday 4th May 2026) Click here to register: bit.ly/4tC5zq8

📢Come and join us in Mexico later this year for the 5th Series of #SBNP! Registration is now open - secure your spot today! 👉 Click here to head to the conference website for more information: bit.ly/4v25JYK

Reminiscing about the fantastic 4th SBNP Conference in 2024! 📢 Interested in joining us for the 5th edition? Visit the conference website today to secure your place at the best available price. We look forward to welcoming you later this year 🎉 Conference Website: bit.ly/3OX3KEM

Lovely C&EN @cenmag.bsky.social story on the history and personal impact of the cancer drug Taxol. After spending recent years deciphering how yew trees, our source for Taxol, synthesize this lifesaving drug, it’s so nice to see it in the larger context #secmet #medsky Plants are amazing chemists.

Join the Reck-Peterson lab in NYC as a HHMI Research Technician! This role will support our new work on the cell biology of secondary metabolite production in filamentous fungi. Apply here: hhmi.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Extern...

Do you know what happens when you touch a carnivorous sundew plant? If the touch is strong and large enough, a cytosolic calcium wave will spread from the site of touch throughout the whole plant, but if you only touch one tentacle (see post below), the calcium wave will be local and less intense.

Out in @science.org The crazy sequence of events from planting maize in dense fields. Density-dependent linalool release triggers release of compounds into the soil affecting microbes and plants. Article: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Perspective: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #PlantScience

A truly enabling new approach by @taralowensohn.bsky.social Will Cody and @sattelylab.bsky.social to probe plant genetics at scale. Single-gene-per-cell delivery coupled to an effective transcriptional selection system www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

@cmcclune.bsky.social will be at the GRC for Single-Cell Approaches in Plant Biology! Be on the lookout for his talk on Wednesday (8/13) at 9.10 am. Talk will be about some new approaches and discoveries recently published in Nature! www.nature.com/articles/s41... #grc #singlecell #plantbiology

Elucidating #plant #Biosynthetic pathways: @jjjvanderhooft.bsky.social @marnixmedema.bsky.social &co develop #MEANtools, an unsupervised computational workflow that integrates #MultiOmics data to predict #metabolic pathways by linking transcripts to metabolites @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4odL94g

Scientists, please take a moment to comment on these plans to limit animal testing in drug regulation and biomedical research. Use whatever experience you have to make your comments specific to you. The law requires regulators take these comments into account, so it might help. Mine is attached.

I just learned these this elephant-trunked-shaped cells, known as ciliate, put their sexy DNA into a special pocket (called a generative nucleus), and the rest of their DNA in a normal get-shit-done nucleus. It has functional specialization nuclei. Respectfully: holy shit 🧵🧪

I didn’t know this but apparently paclitaxel is still derived from the yew tree!? I had just assumed we had found a way to synthesize it. www.nature.com/articles/s41... Discovery of FoTO1 and Taxol genes enables biosynthesis of baccatin III | Nature

Thank you Carolyn Bertozzi @carolynbertozzi.bskyverified.social for highlighting our Taxol work!

A friend of my compared gutting of federal agencies to a wrecking a car: if you remove 30% of the parts of the car, it does not go 30% slower. It stops working.

A million shades of green: understanding and harnessing plant metabolic diversity Rocky Payet, Anne Osbourn et al presents a step-by-step guide to starting a project that characterises plant secondary metabolites www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Further advanced in synbio systems for expression of plant rubiscos in E. coli, exploring importance of Raf1 variants: academic.oup.com/jxb/article-... and accompanying perspective via @jxbotany.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...

It makes sense that skin microbes would have an intimate relationship with our immune cells. But engineering these bugs into topical vaccines still feels like sci-fi. Congrats @djenetbousbaine.bsky.social on the well deserved prize

How plants sense injury in their barrier tissue, periderm? Painstakingly detailed and amazing work by post doc Hiroyuki Iida shows that wounding is sensed by the diffusion of two gases: ethylene and oxygen. @treebiocoe.bsky.social‬ @erc.europa.eu‬ 1/x 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Pithy coverage by @plantaeofficial.bsky.social of our recent Taxol work #chemsky #medsky

Plant Science Research Weekly -- Elucidation and recreation of the biosynthetic pathway for taxol (Nature) @cmcclune.bsky.social‬ (Summary by Mary Williams @PlantTeaching.bsky.social) buff.ly/miccEK3 #PlantaePSRW

How 🆒 is this?!? www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

🔓Don't miss this #OpenAccess Highlight in our MS Metabolomics themed collection by Brett C. Covington & Mohammad R. Seyedsayamdost at Princeton University looking at the evolution of high-throughput mass spectrometry in screening for cryptic natural products #natprod

Great article in today’s Stanford Report on our recent work deciphering how yew trees produce Taxol @sattelylab.bsky.social news.stanford.edu/stories/2025...

Excited to see this great coverage in C&EN of our work on how yew trees synthesize the chemotherapy Taxol #medsky 🧪

Nature research paper: Discovery of FoTO1 and Taxol genes enables biosynthesis of baccatin III https://go.nature.com/44eE3Va

A new transcriptomics method has identified eight enzymes enabling efficient biosynthesis of the Taxol precursor baccatin III in tobacco, supporting more sustainable cancer drug production. doi.org/g9p6qk

Thank you to @frankelab.bsky.social for his eloquent overview in Nature news on our Taxol paper. He deftly articulates the history of this longstanding biochemistry challenge. rdcu.be/eqwOy