Dolf Weijers

events.teams.microsoft.comMicrosoft Virtual Events Powered by TeamsMicrosoft Virtual Events Powered by Teams

Don’t miss this opportunity! We will host Kaare Jensen foe our @green-te.bsky.social MechanoBioTalks this week!

Cecilia Borassi@ceciborassi.bsky.social

On 28th October at 2PM CET, Kaare H. Jensen (Technical University of Denmark) will join the @green-te.bsky.social webinar series talking about "Cutting Mechanics of Soft Tissues: From Paper Cuts to Natural Stingers" Register for this MechanoBioTalk here: events.teams.microsoft.com/event/06103a...

@currentbiology.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... If you thought plant gene refulauwas simple… Cool work from Christian Hardtke, Noel Blanco and teams on exonic enhancers!

biorxiv.orgbiorxiv.org

Dolf Weijers reposted

Current Biology

10 Sept

In our recent issue we interview Susana Coelho, who uses brown algae to study evolution, development, and life-cycle complexity at the Max Planck Institute for Biology. Read the Q&A to find out more about Susana’s most important scientific influences: www.cell.com/current-biol...

cell.comSusana CoelhoInterview with Susana Coelho, who uses brown algae to study evolution, development, and life-cycle complexity at the Max Planck Institute for Biology.

8 Sept

Don’t we look fast & furious…? Wish us luck! @jennyrussinova.bsky.social @wabniklab.bsky.social Cyril Zipfel

green-te.nlActivities - GreenTEActivities Webinars ”MechanoBioTalks – Mechanics, Materials and Living Matter” is a webinar series supported by the GreenTE consortium and organized […]

29 Aug

Thanks @jbwallingford.bsky.social @rashmi-priya.bsky.social and others for putting together an amazing Dev Bio meeting in Santa Cruz. Lesson learnt: John Wallingford keeps his promises. Result: ridiculous talk title 😂

Dolf Weijers reposted

Cecilia Borassi

@ceciborassi.bsky.social

20 Aug

Sign up for the upcoming MechanoBioTalk by Neftaly Cruz Mireles (University of Zurich): "Defining protein phosphorylation networks at the plant–pathogen interface"- 16th September 2PM CET. Find the registration link and more information in our website: green-te.nl/activities/ @green-te.bsky.social

biorxiv.orgSystematic proteomics identifies a conserved mechanism for polar targeting of plant cortical proteinsMulticellular development is tightly coupled to the polarization of individual cells, which partitions polar proteins along the cell cortex and can control asymmetric cell division, anisotropic growth...

It took some time, but we are thrilled to present the first major outcome of our @erc.europa.eu ERC DIRNDL AdG project: Evgeniya Pukhovaya @epukh.bsky.social and others in our team describe the discovery of a mechanism for polar protein targeting in plants (1/13) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

We discovered a mechanism that is both necessary and sufficient for PM targeting of the polar SOSEKI protein, and that may target many other polar proteins to the PM. We believe that this is a conserved mechanism at the heart of plant cell polarity, and look forward to further dissecting it! (12/13)

weijerslab.shinyapps.ioweijerslab.shinyapps.io

We welcome feedback, and thank all contributors to this work. We have also made all data available, including in this Shiny app: weijerslab.shinyapps.io/polar_protei.... We hope the community will also start mining this data to illuminate polar protein targeting mechanisms in plants!!! 13/13)

Loss of polar PAT function causes developmental defects, reduces the PM pool of SOSEKI1 protein, and makes SOSEKI polar PM localization much more sensitive to an acylation drug. So, PAT enzymes contribute to SOSEKI PM targeting! (10/13)

But are PATs also sufficient…? By teaming up with Anna Akhmanova’s team, we found that PAT19 promoted cell-peripheral SOSEKI localization in human cells. Next, with Helen and David Strutt @struttlab.bsky.social, we found that PAT19 targets SOSEKI1 to a polar PM domain in fruit fly epithelia! (11/13)

In the lateral cluster, we found conserved PAT enzymes that can decorate Cysteines in substrate proteins with an acylation group for membrane attachment. Since we previously found a conserved C in SOSEKI to be critical for polar membrane localization, we focused on the PAT enzymes (8/13)

The PAT enzymes themselves show striking polar localization, and may therefore indeed be part of a polar targeting system (9/13)

Catherine Albrecht in the team found that orthologs of several of the Arabidopsis SOSEKI-associated proteins showed conserved polar localization in the liverwort Marchantia (6/13)

Cathy performed a similar, systematic proximity ligation screen in this species. Lo and behold…there is a large overlap in associated proteins and clusters! Experimentally localizing these proteins confirmed polarity for some (7/13)

We next used this newly identified set of polarized proteins, covering most polar domains, for a large and systematic proximity ligation screen to identify proteins associated with multiple proteins in the same polar domains. This identified >2000 proteins with some bias in localization (4/13)

Statistical analysis identified clusters of proteins that are strongly associated with polar domains, and we focused on an inner lateral cluster (5/13)

doi.orgA SOSEKI-based coordinate system interprets global polarity cues in Arabidopsis - Nature PlantsIt is unknown how plant cell polarities are connected to organismal axes. A SOSEKI protein is found to integrate apical–basal and radial organismal axes to localize to polar cell edges independent of tissue context, but requiring cell wall integrity.

While polar proteins are known in plants, targeting mechanisms are not well understood. We previously identified SOSEKI proteins, polarized polymeric proteins, conserved in land plants, similar to animal Dishevelled proteins (2/13) doi.org/10.1038/s414... linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii...

In this work, through iterative proteomics, @maritzavandop.bsky.social and others in the team discovered a module of SOSEKI-associated proteins, several of which are also polarized (3/13)

green-te.nlOpen PhD position: Modeling the mechanical regulation of plant development and regeneration - GreenTEThe opening is for a PhD research position within the field of mathematical or theoretical biology, computational physics, applied mathematics […]

12 Aug

Greetings from Tübingen 😍

Dolf Weijers reposted

Cecilia Borassi

@ceciborassi.bsky.social

5 Aug

PhD position available on modeling the mechanical regulation of plant development and regeneration. A great opportunity to join the plant mechanobiology community in GreenTE! More info can be found here: green-te.nl/job/open-phd... @green-te.bsky.social @roelandmerks.bsky.social

@luisalonsobaez.bsky.social

31 July

Ink found larger brother 😀 (Eiger on right) 🇨🇭

Dolf Weijers reposted

Luis Alonso Baez

18 Feb

Our work now on its final version. We mapped the mechanical properties of roots at tissue and single cell levels using Brillouin microscopy and molecular rotors. Additional mutants and stress measurements from what we previously showed in the preprint are included. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.orgThe mechanical properties of Arabidopsis thaliana roots adapt dynamically during development and to stressBrillouin microscopy reveals in vivo dynamics of mechanical properties during plant development and response to stress.

sciencedirect.comsciencedirect.com

23 July

Online at @cellcellpress.bsky.social today: everything you always wanted (???) to know about Auxin Signaling and never dared to ask. From Jiashu, Aaron and Martijn in our team, with @luciastrader.bsky.social and Tongda Xu www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

myosinactncrazy.bsky.social

18 July

Bucket list item unlocked: listening to YYZ at YYZ 😀

Dolf Weijers reposted

Cecilia Borassi

@ceciborassi.bsky.social

17 July

The role of plant actin in mechanical responses available now on bioRxiv! Congratulations to @jasper-lamers.bsky.social, Anna Daamen @jorissprakel.bsky.social and to everyone involved! 🌱💻

jasper-lamers.bsky.social@jasper-lamers.bsky.social

Our work on the mechanoresponsiveness of actin is out! While plant microtubules have been extensively studied for their role in mechanobiology, actin has very much been ignored. Here we show that actin responds to cellular deformations within minutes and observed it in Marchantia and Arabidopsis!

Dolf Weijers reposted

@myosinactncrazy.bsky.social

17 July

Plant actin networks are rapid mechano-adaptive scaffolds www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

scdb2026.sites.ucsc.eduSanta Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting

19 June

We had the pleasure of hosting @plantophagy.bsky.social for a seminar at our @bic-wur.bsky.social department yesterday and hear about his team’s super original and cool approaches to study and understand autophagy in all its colors. Thanks for the inspiring science!!!

Dolf Weijers reposted

Green-TE

@green-te.bsky.social

17 June

On 24 June at 2 PM CET, the MechnoBioTalks webinar series will continue with Benoit Landrein. His research focuses on how tissue mechanics regulate plant organ growth trough mechanical signaling. Subscribe to get a link: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... For more information see our website.

Dolf Weijers reposted

Silvia Ramundo

@sramundo.bsky.social

12 June

Do you enjoy the thrill of discovery? Does this photo give you good vibes? Then you might be the right person to join our lab! Current projects range from chloroplast transcription to thylakoid membrane remodeling & we would be happy to welcome bright and motivated people at all career stages!

Dolf Weijers reposted

Jim Haseloff

@jimhaseloff.bsky.social

10 June

For liverwort mavens, I've needed to shift our Marchantia resources to a new website (I've reached retirement from academia in Cambridge) - and the plant synthetic biology stuff has moved to https://www.haseloff-lab.info (Now have more time for DIY builds! Updates to come)

Dolf Weijers reposted

Lowe Lab

@lowelab.bsky.social

9 June

Repost please !! We have extended the abstract deadline for the 2026 Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Conference to June 20. scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu. Get those abstract in !

8 June

Cool special issue on plant evolution just dropped at @currentbiology.bsky.social our 2 cents: Fruits of tons of fun discussions with the one and only Susana Coelho: www.cell.com/current-biol... Reflections on evolution of auxin response with @jorgehg.bsky.social : www.cell.com/current-biol...

cell.comcell.com

eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.comeur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com

8 June

A free to read link for the auxin review: eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

Dolf Weijers reposted

Dominique Bergmann

@stanfordstomata.bsky.social

2 June

This is going to be so exciting! Reach out with ideas! And come find me at ICAR in Singapore to learn more.

Development@dev-journal.bsky.social

Call for Papers Submit your latest plant and multicellular algae #DevBio research to our upcoming special issue – Plant and Algae Development #DevSIPlantAlgae Editors: @stanfordstomata.bsky.social & Susana Coelho Deadline: 2 November 2026 journals.biologists.com/dev/pages/pl...