Plant Signaling

As multicellular organisms, plants constantly perceive their environment and respond appropriately, which is required for their survival, as well as the coordination of their growth and development. In particular, we are focusing on cell surface-localised immune receptors, called pattern recognition receptors, that perceive microbe-derived or endogenous patterns to activate innate immune responses.

Plant pattern recognition receptors are receptor kinases or are part of receptor kinase complexes, and thus offer exquisite model systems to study the molecular basis of plant immunity, but also the mechanisms underlying the function, activation and regulation receptor kinase-mediated pathways in growth, development and responses to environmental stresses. In addition, we are interested in identifying and engineering immune receptors to improve disease resistance in crops. 

• Wheat Pm4 resistance to powdery mildew is controlled by alternative splice variants encoding chimeric proteins
  Sanchez-Martin, Javier; Widrig, Victoria; Herren, Gerhard; Wicker, Thomas; Zbinden, Helen; Gronnier, Julien; Sporri, Laurin; Praz, Coraline R; Heuberger, Matthias; Kolodziej, Markus C.; Isaksson, Jonatan; Steuernagel, Burkhard; Karafiatova, Miroslava; Dolezel, Jaroslav; Zipfel, Cyril; Keller, Beat
  Nature Plants,  10.1038/s41477-021-00869-2 MAR 2021
• The transcriptional landscape of Arabidopsis thaliana pattern-triggered immunity
  Bjornson, Marta; Pimprikar, Priya; Nuernberger, Thorsten; Zipfel, Cyril
  Nature Plants   DOI: 10.1038/s41477-021-00874-5  MAR 2021
• A membrane-bound ankyrin repeat protein confers race-specific leaf rust disease resistance in wheat
  Kolodziej, Markus C.; Singla, Jyoti; Sanchez-Martin, Javier; Zbinden, Helen; Simkova, Hana; Karafiatova, Miroslava; Dolezel, Jaroslav; Gronnier, Julien; Poretti, Manuel; Glauser, Gaetan; Zhu, Wangsheng; Koster, Philipp; Zipfel, Cyril; Wicker, Thomas; Krattinger, Simon; Keller, Beat
  Nature Communications,  DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20777-x FEB 11 2021
• A receptor-like protein mediates plant immune responses to herbivore-associated molecular patterns
  Steinbrenner, Adam D.; Munoz-Amatriain, Maria; Chaparro, Antonio F.; Aguilar-Venegas, Jessica Montserrat; Lo, Sassoum; Okuda, Satohiro; Glauser, Gaetan; Dongiovanni, Julien; Shi, Da; Hall, Marlo; Crubaugh, Daniel; Holton, Nicholas; Zipfel, Cyril; Abagyan, Ruben; Turlings, Ted C. J.; Close, Timothy J.; Huffaker, Alisa; Schmelz, Eric A
  Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences Of The United States Of America 117(49): 31510-31518   DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2018415117   DEC 8 2020
• Lumi-Map, a Real-Time Luciferase Bioluminescence Screen of Mutants Combined with MutMap, Reveals Arabidopsis Genes Involved in PAMP-Triggered Immunity
  Kato, Hiroaki; Onai, Kiyoshi; Abe, Akira; Shimizu, Motoki; Takagi, Hiroki; et al.
  Molecular Plant-microbe Interactions   DOI: 10.1094/MPMI-05-20-0118-TA  DEC 2020
• The calcium-permeable channel OSCA1.3 regulates plant stomatal immunity
  Thor, Kathrin; Jiang, Shushu; Michard, Erwan; George, Jeoffrey; Scherzer, Soenke; et al.
  Nature  DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2702-1, SEP 24 2020
• Chitin perception in plasmodesmata characterizes submembrane immune-signaling specificity in plants
  Cheval, Cecilia; Samwald, Sebastian; Johnston, Matthew G.; de Keijzer, Jeroen; Breakspear, Andrew; et al.
  Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences Of The United States Of America,  DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1907799117 APR 28 2020
• Update on Receptors and Signaling
  Cheung, Alice Y.; Qu, Li-Jia; Russinova, Eugenia; Zhao, Yunde; Zipfel, Cyril
  Plant Physiology DOI: 10.1104/pp.20.00275, APR 2020
• Carbonic anhydrases CA1 and CA4 function in atmospheric CO2-modulated disease resistance
  Zhou, Yeling; Vroegop-Vos, Irene A.; Van Dijken, Anja J. H.; Van der Does, Dieuwertje; Zipfel, Cyril; et al.
  Planta  DOI: 10.1007/s00425-020-03370-w  MAR 7 2020
• CrRLK1L receptor-like kinases HERK1 and ANJEA are female determinants of pollen tube reception
  Galindo-Trigo, Sergio; Blanco-Tourinan, Noel; DeFalco, Tomas A.; Wells, Eloise S.; Gray, Julie E.; et al.
  Embo Reports, 10.15252/embr.201948466, FEB 2020
• The fungal subtilase AsES elicits a PTI-like defence response in Arabidopsis thaliana plants independently of its enzymatic activity
  del Pilar Caro, Maria; Holton, Nicholas; Conti, Gabriela; Laura Venturuzzi, Andrea; Gustavo Martinez-Zamora, Martin; et al.
  Molecular Plant Pathology,  DOI: 10.1111/mpp.12881
• TTL Proteins Scaffold Brassinosteroid Signaling Components at the Plasma Membrane to Optimize Signal Transduction in Arabidopsis
  Amorim-Silva, V; Garcia-Moreno, A; Castillo, AG; Lakhssassi, N; del Valle, AE; Perez-Sancho, J; Li, YS; Pose, D; Perez-Rodriguez, J; Lin, J; Valpuesta, V; Borsani, O; Zipfel, C; Macho, AP; Botella, MA
  PLANT CELL, 31 (8):1807-1828; 10.1105/tpc.19.00150 AUG 2019
• A Lotus japonicus cytoplasmic kinase connects Nod factor perception by the NFR5 LysM receptor to nodulation
  Wong, JEMM; Nadzieja, M; Madsen, LH; Bucherl, CA; Dam, S; Sandal, NN; Couto, D; Derbyshire, P; Uldum-Berentsen, M; Schroeder, S; Schwammle, V; Nogueira, FCS; Asmussen, MH; Thirup, S; Radutoiu, S; Blaise, M; Andersen, KR; Menke, FLH; Zipfel, C; Stougaard, J
  PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 116 (28):14339-14348; 10.1073/pnas.1815425116 JUL 9 2019
• Mechanisms of RALF peptide perception by a heterotypic receptor complex
  Yu Xiao, Martin Stegmann, Zhifu Han, Thomas A. DeFalco, Katarzyna Parys, Li Xu, Youssef Belkhadir, Cyril Zipfel and Jijie Chai
  Nature, 10 July 2019. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1409-7
• …

• Plant innate immunity
• Plant receptor kinases
• Phosphorylation-based regulation of plant signaling
• Plasma membrane organization
• Cell wall integrity sensing  
• Plant biotechnology 

• Protein-protein interactions
• Protein phosphorylation analysis
• Plant-bacteria interactions
• Bioimaging
• Signaling bioassays in immunity, growth and development
• Electrophysiology