A new study published in the journal Nature shows that the same phenomenon that occurs when we try to mix oil and water – phase separation – plays an important role in the immune system of plants.
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Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research shed light on how harmful fungi evade recognition by their plant hosts and aid infection.
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A huge congratulations to Jane Parker who is among the new Fellows elected to join the UK’s Royal Society for outstanding contributions in the field of sciences. [more]

Ryohei Thomas Nakano, previously a postdoc with Paul Schulze-Lefert, is now continuing his research as a professor at Hokkaido University in Japan.

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Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, in Cologne, in collaboration with an international team of researchers, have identified natural chemical strategies that bacteria use to keep competitors at bay and successfully proliferate on plants. The study is now published in the journal PNAS.
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Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research and the University of Cologne in Germany together with colleagues from China have unravelled how wheat protects itself from a deadly pathogen. Their findings, published in the journal Nature, could be harnessed to make important crop species more resistant to disease. [more]

Two studies published in the journal Science by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, Germany in collaboration with colleagues in China have discovered natural cellular molecules that drive critical plant immune responses. These compounds have all the hallmarks of being small messengers tailored by plants to turn on key defense-control hubs. Harnessing these insights may allow scientists and plant breeders to design molecules that make plants, including many important crop species, more resistant to disease. [more]

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A collaborative project between researchers has shed light on the fungal genetic determinants that explain why some fungi from the root microbiome can colonize roots and cause disease more efficiently than others.
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Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research (MPIPZ) have discovered that diverse root-colonizing fungi can benefit plants, but only when they are kept in check by the host innate immune system and the bacteria residing in roots. [more]

We are delighted to announce that three early career researchers from the Department of Plant Microbe Interactions [more]

An international team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research and the University of Åarhus in Denmark have discovered that bacteria from the plant microbiota are adapted to their host species. In a newly published study, they show how root-associated bacteria have a competitive advantage when colonizing their native host, which allows them to invade an already established microbiota. [more]

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research (MPIPZ) have discovered that signalling occurring from the response of plant leaves to light, and plant roots to microbes, is integrated along a microbiota-root-shoot axis to boost plant growth when light conditions are suboptimal. [more]

Scientists from MPIPZ in collaboration with the Sainsbury Laboratory (UK) find a long sought after complex between two conserved plant-specific protein families that connect pathogen-activated immune complexes to defence outputs. [more]

A collaborative study on a plant intracellular immune receptor from researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research (MPIPZ) also reveals some common operational principles with immunity proteins from humans. [more]

Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research (MPIPZ) and University of Cologne researcher Takaki Maekawa and colleagues have discovered that plants have independently evolved a family of immune proteins that are strikingly similar to animals. [more]

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research have found that, faced with limiting iron, plants direct their microbiota to mobilise this essential nutrient for optimal growth. [more]

By analysing the different layers of bacterial gene expression during pathogen infection of a plant host, Kenichi Tsuda and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, Germany and Huazhong Agricultural University in Wuhan, China have revealed new insights into bacterial gene regulation as well as the strategies employed by plants to target key bacterial processes. [more]

A continental-scale census and analysis of root-inhabiting microorganisms reveals that plants across Europe consistently harbour a small group of unexpectedly abundant ‘core’ microorganisms, irrespective of soil conditions and climate. [more]

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne have revealed that direct physical associations between plant immune proteins and fungal molecules are widespread during attempted infection. [more]

A new study by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research (MPIPZ) in Cologne has revealed that a previously unappreciated structural feature underlies the ability of the plant immune molecule EDS1 to provide a timely defense boost against pathogens. [more]

A new study from researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research published in the journal PNAS shows that the crosstalk between plant responses to physical and biological stresses varies between young and old leaves to enable optimal plant performance when the two kinds of stress are encountered simultaneously. [more]

Conclusions of a study published in the journal CELL that was led by Stephane Hacquard and Paul Schulze-Lefert at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, Germany. [more]

The relationship between so-called rhizobia, nitrogen-fixing bacteria that are mostly from the order Rhizobiales, and leguminous plants is one of the best-characterized beneficial plant-microbe interactions in all of nature. [more]

A team of researchers from Germany and the US led by Kenichi Tsuda at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research (MPIPZ) in Cologne have now developed a method that can be used to probe the complexity of plant-bacteria interactions. [more]

New work from a team of scientists headed by Paul Schulze-Lefert at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne [more]

Legume-rhizobia symbiosis influences bacterial community in plant roots [more]

A few modifications in the genome turn a fungal plant pathogen into a potentially beneficial organism [more]

Similar to the skin of humans millions of microbes are living on the surface of a leaf influencing the health and fitness of the plant. [more]

Researchers cultivate the majority of bacteria in the laboratory that colonize Arabidopsis plants in nature [more]

In this article published in Cell, Le Roux et al. (2015), describe an exquisite recognition mechanism in the model plant species Arabidopsis. [more]

A study published by Alcazar et al in PLoS Genetics provides some important leads to the evolution of the immune system in European populations of Arabidopsis thaliana and mechanisms underlying the maintenance of particular immunity-related genes or allelic forms in nature. [more]

Signalling pathway links local and systemic plant immunity [more]

The molecular architecture of three key proteins and their complexes reveals how plants fine-tune their immune response to pathogens [more]

The parasitic plant fungi primarily turn to sexual reproduction when host plants improve their defense mechanisms [more]

Even in closely-related species, life-style moulds the genetic make-up of pathogens and how their genes are used [more]

Plants choose the soil bacteria that they allow into their roots [more]

Immune response depends on the distribution of plant and bacterial proteins [more]

So-called "coil-coil domain" drives cells to programmed cell death [more]

The fungal pathogen has only those genes left that are necessary for its parasitical existence [more]

Two proteins involved in powdery mildew infection in plants also play an important role in fertilisation [more]

Biologen haben einen wichtigen Helfer für eine vollständige Immunantwort bei Pflanzen entdeckt [more]

Pflanzen tun einiges, um ihre Abwehr unter Kontrolle zu halten [more]

Wie sich Pflanzenparasiten ihren Wirt gefügig machen [more]

Pflanzen mobilisieren Senfölglycoside als natürliches Breitband-Fungizid gegen Pilzerreger [more]

Das unscheinbare Bodenbakterium Agrobakterium erlangte vor circa 30 Jahren Weltruhm. [more]

Max-Planck-Wissenschaftler enthüllen molekulare Details der Pflanzenabwehr [more]

Wichtiger Sensor des pflanzlichen Immunsystems entdeckt [more]

Max-Planck-Wissenschaftler decken ausgeklügeltes Abwehrsystem in Pflanzen auf [more]

Anlagen für eine natürliche Mehltauresistenz bei der Modellpflanze Arabidopsis entdeckt [more]

Max Planck researchers in Cologne, Germany demonstrate that a multi-step defence system underlies the durable resistance of plants to fungal parasites [more]

Max Planck Researcher in Cologne, Germany, unravel mechanism of resistance to fungal infection in Barley [more]

Kölner Max-Planck-Forscher entdecken chemisches Waffenarsenal im Immunsystem von Pflanzen [more]

In der neuesten Ausgabe des Wissenschaftsmagazins NATURE berichten Kölner Max-Planck-Forscher über einen erstaunlichen biochemischen Sonderweg in der Signalerkennung bei Pflanzen. [more]