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AmirAli Toghani

@amiralito.bsky.social
1.3K followers 1K following 44 posts

Biologist @thesainsburylab.bsky.social. Currently doing a PhD with @kamounlab.bsky.social Curious about plant immune receptors, molecular evolution, and other stuff. 🌿💻 #evoMPMI Find out more here: amiralito.github.io

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Reposted by AmirAli Toghani
ioannamor.bsky.social @ioannamor.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
I'm new on Bluesky, and happy to share that this paper finally came out while I was on maternity leave! It contains the main body of work of my PhD research, and it's much improved compared to the bioRxiv version thanks to our reviewers.
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PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · 08/07/2026
#Mosquito gene drives for #malaria control can be undermined by rare, hard to detect genetic resistance alleles. This study by @ioannamor.bsky.social @drew-hammond.bsky.social &co reveals how #CRISPR resistance emerges and how to overcome it, advancing vector control 🧪 #AcademicSky plos.io/3R0ggEQ
A photograph of an intersex An. gambiae mosquito bearing a Cas9-induced mutation collected in an Eppendorf tube for further analysis. Image credit to Ioanna Morianou.
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Hassan Salem @hassansalem.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Beetles secrete jelly to embed & sustain symbionts with impossibly tiny genomes🪲 But what is this jelly made of? And how does it help maintain a partnership that has lasted over 62 million years? Thrilled to share our latest, out now in @natcomms.nature.com! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Yellow protein co-opted to sustain obligate symbiosis in leaf beetles - Nature Communications
Insects have evolved diverse strategies to protect their genome-reduced symbionts during vertical transmission. Here, authors show that tortoise beetles have co-opted a Yellow protein to form spheres ...
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Yu Sugihara @yusugihara.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Excited to share our latest work! 🍅 Two evolutionarily distinct immune receptors recognize the same viral target, yet differ in their recognition spectra. A fascinating example of convergent evolution in plant immunity!
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Jogi Madhuprakash @jmadhuprakash.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
🍅 Tomato brown rugose fruit virus spread worldwide. For >60 years, one resistance gene protected tomatoes. This virus broke through. A second gene confers resistance. The same viral target? Convergent evolution? Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #EvoMPMI #NLRbiology (1/9) 🧵
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Sophien Kamoun @kamounlab.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I just published: How do we recognize world-class science? Not by the journal it appeared in What I told early-career researchers about prediction, rigour, failure, priors — and the tyranny of bar graphs. kamounlab.medium.com/how-do-we-re...
kamounlab.medium.com
How do we recognize world-class science? Not by the journal it appeared in
What I told early-career researchers about prediction, rigour, failure, priors — and the tyranny of bar graphs.
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Sophien Kamoun @kamounlab.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Two seemingly unrelated sides of our lab collided today in the AWESOME new Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system poster: flowers 🌸 and phylogenomics 🧬 Need a new genome? Just pick up the phone and “dial-a-genome” 📞🧬 @getgenome.bsky.social www.tudelft.nl/en/hortus-bo...
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Martin Pacesa @martinpacesa.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
ʙɪɴᴅᴄʀᴀꜰᴛ2 is out, and we're not waiting for the paper. The full code drops today, free for academic and industry use. We're releasing it early so you can start designing right now, and bring its full power to the current Adaptyv competition. github.com/PacesaLab/Bi...
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Nick Talbot @talbotlabtsl.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Latest preprint from our group. We found the Bip1 transcription factor is phosphorylated in a Pmk1-dependent manner & with Mst12 co-regulates appressorium-specific functions, as well as acting on genes associated with invasive growth. @camilla-moli.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
A Pmk1-Regulated Mst12-Bip1 Network Coordinates Appressorium Function, Effector Deployment, and Invasive Growth by Magnaporthe oryzae
To cause rice blast disease, the filamentous fungus Magnaporthe oryzae develops a specialised infection cell called an appressorium, which generates enormous turgor to breach the rice leaf cuticle. Al...
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Reposted by AmirAli Toghani
Camilla Molinari @camilla-moli.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Excited to share this pre-print from my PhD work! We explore a Pmk1-Mst12-Bip1 network required for appressorium-mediated infection by the blast fungus 🌾 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Thread 👇
biorxiv.org
A Pmk1-Regulated Mst12-Bip1 Network Coordinates Appressorium Function, Effector Deployment, and Invasive Growth by Magnaporthe oryzae
To cause rice blast disease, the filamentous fungus Magnaporthe oryzae develops a specialised infection cell called an appressorium, which generates enormous turgor to breach the rice leaf cuticle. Al...
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Reposted by AmirAli Toghani
Sophien Kamoun @kamounlab.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
We just published: Fold on Tight — 10 lessons on AI structure prediction Andy Posbe @adnroide.bsky.social turned our ten lessons on AI structure prediction into a thread. Here it is, one lesson at a time. kamounlab.medium.com/fold-on-tigh...
kamounlab.medium.com
Fold on Tight — 10 lessons on AI structure prediction
Andy Posbe turned our ten lessons on AI structure prediction into a thread. Here it is, one lesson at a time.
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Andy Posbe @adnroide.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
No one remembers authorising this firmware update
Five researchers hold freshly printed immune receptor structures while the office Ricoh continues production, despite nobody remembering authorising this feature.
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Reposted by AmirAli Toghani
Jack Rhodes @jackrhodes.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
An embryo-derived peptide signal directs endosperm polarity in Arabidopsis
science.org
An embryo-derived peptide signal directs endosperm polarity in Arabidopsis
Angiosperm seed formation requires the coordinated development of the products of double fertilization—the embryo and the endosperm. The endosperm mediates efficient nutrient transfer from surrounding...
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Reposted by AmirAli Toghani
Alex McClelland @alexjmcclelland.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Very pleased to have contributed to this concise, digestible overview of AI structure prediction! I think this is a great resource for newbies and experienced AlphaFold users alike. Happy Folding!
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Remco Stam @rstam.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
New preprint! There have been quite a few papers about RLP and RLK receptors, but none of them have a truly reproducible annotation pipeline (including my own...)... We finally made such a pipeline and look more systematically at RLPs within tomato. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
PlantLRR-PRR:A Reproducible Annotation Pipeline Reveals Contrasting Evolution of Developmental and Defense Receptor-Like Proteins in Tomato
Plants perceive external and internal signals via receptors to modulate their growth, development, and defenses. Leucine-rich-repeat receptor-like-kinase (RLKs) and receptor-like-proteins (RLPs) are t...
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Buzz Baum @buzzbaum.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
If you thought you understood how one cell becomes two (and imagined studying the problem using an organism that lives in deep sea volcanic vents was impossible), read Florian’s paper and think again!
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Andy Posbe @adnroide.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Excited to share Fold on Tight! 🎉 We distil recent advances in plant immunity into 10 lessons for using AI structure prediction critically and effectively, in plants and beyond. 📝 zenodo.org/records/2210...
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Sophien Kamoun @kamounlab.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
You saw the poster—now hear the talk! Mauricio Contreras @mpcontreras.bsky.social with Maian @maigarro.bsky.social and AmirAli @amiralito.bsky.social reveal the hidden handshake between sensors and helpers in the NRC network 🤝🌱 #BSPP26 #PPATH2026
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Josh Bennett @joshwbennett.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
I am really excited to share the first chapter of my PhD, where we characterise a genetically linked NLR/MLKL pair underpinning the Rwt3 resistance locus in wheat! With yet another KFP involved in monocot immunity 🌾 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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bioRxiv Plant Bio @biorxiv-plants.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
A wheat immune receptor pair executes cell death through a helper MLKL www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Isabel Monte @isabelmonte.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Deadline extended 📢 Submit your abstract for the #PPRM2026 by July 29th! Check our fantastic lineup of invited speakers and come join us discuss all things #plant peptide receptors 🌱 Please spread the word and see you in Freising (Germany) from September 14 to 16 😊 www.events.tum.de/frontend/ind...
Flyer of the Plant Peptide Receptor Meeting 2026 (September 14-16, Freising, Germany) showing cell-surface receptors on the plasma membrane against a background showing Freising. The QR code will lead to the PPRM2026 website where you can register and submit your abstract by July 29th.
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bioRxiv Plant Bio @biorxiv-plants.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Computational design of de novo integrated domains enables rational control of pathogen effector recognition in plant NLR immune receptors. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Juan Carlos De la Concepcion @delaconcepcionjc.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Our latest work on immune receptor engineering for enhanced pathogen recognition is out in @theplantcell.bsky.social academic.oup.com/plcell/artic... #NLRs #Effectors #Exo70
academic.oup.com
Engineering an Exo70 integrated domain of a barley NLR for improved blast resistance
Engineering the barley NLR RGH2 enhances recognition of blast pathogen effectors from rice and wheat, leading to improved disease resistance.
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Mauricio Contreras @mpcontreras.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
As seen on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social: our story on how the dreaded late blight pathogen hijacks a helper NLR pathway is now out in its final form! 🎉 Meet AVRcap1b: the two-faced effector 🧵👇 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
A potato late blight pathogen effector interacts with ENTH-domain protein TOL9a and an activated helper NLR to suppress immunity
A plant pathogen effector suppresses an activated helper NLR via a host ENTH domain–containing protein, NbTOL9a.
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Sophien Kamoun @kamounlab.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
You saw them first on @bioRxiv. Now they’re out in print—back-to-back. Meet AVRcap1b: the two-faced immunosuppressor from the potato blight pathogen Phytophthora infestans. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
A potato late blight pathogen effector interacts with ENTH-domain protein TOL9a and an activated helper NLR to suppress immunity
A plant pathogen effector suppresses an activated helper NLR via a host ENTH domain–containing protein, NbTOL9a.
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Marion Clavel @thevirusmc.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Our work is out now! (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...). We discover a selective autophagy pathway that protects plants from the mess caused by RNA viruses. Intrigued? Follow the spaghetti trail for a summary of our findings🧵-->
science.org
Selective autophagy fine-tunes plant immunity to promote cell survival during viral infection
RNA viruses co-opt host endomembranes to form replication complexes, often triggering cellular stress and immune responses. Here, we show that Arabidopsis thaliana activates selective autophagy to res...
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Elenor Kennedy @ebkennedy.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
@khongsamchia.bsky.social Extremely excited to share the first pre-print from my PhD project in the Carella lab, co-first authored with @khongsamchia.bsky.social 🎉 (Thread below ⬇️) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Huge thanks to all co-authors and the #CarellaCapybaras for all the support 😊
biorxiv.org
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AmirAli Toghani @amiralito.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Started off as convergent observations in the lab with Mau and led to one of my favorite works so far! Gotta love molecular evolution and receptor biology 😊🧬💻 Huge effort from @maigarro.bsky.social @mpcontreras.bsky.social for pushing this together to the end. 🤘🏻
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Mauricio Contreras @mpcontreras.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Huge team effort together with the two legends @amiralito.bsky.social & Maián! Thanks to Raoul Frijters from @rijkzwaan.bsky.social for inspiration and to @kamounlab.bsky.social for the constant support. It was a pleasure to put this story together! Check it out now👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
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Mauricio Contreras @mpcontreras.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Check out our updated activation-and-release model. This one image condenses over 10 years of work from many legendary @kamounlab.bsky.social members 🤯 Big shoutout to Chih-Hang, @tolgaboz.bsky.social, Lida, Aki, Selvaraj, @jmadhuprakash.bsky.social, @hsuanpai.bsky.social, Ben and many more!
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Sophien Kamoun @kamounlab.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
This is the culmination of >10 years of work by generations of students and postdocs. Many false starts. And we know that others have tried too. Structural insights into the activate-and-release mechanism of NLR activation. And we can engineer it too! Kudos Team 🙏🔥
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Mauricio Contreras @mpcontreras.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Check out our latest work! AlphaFold 3 revealed a transient immune receptor complex that eluded biochemical studies for almost a decade 🤯 We describe a conserved structural logic underlying sensor–helper communication in an NLR immune receptor network 🧵👇
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bioRxiv Plant Bio @biorxiv-plants.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
A conserved structural logic underlies sensor-helper NLR communication in the NRC immune receptor network www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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AmirAli Toghani @amiralito.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Glad to see we're starting to work on Giraffes 👌🏻
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Juan Carlos De la Concepcion @delaconcepcionjc.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Excited to have started my group @zmbp-tuebingen.bsky.social through the @dfg.de Emmy Noether program. In this project we will be looking at the mechanisms of host invasion by fungal pathogens 🍄🌱 Check it out and drop me a line if you are interested! uni-tuebingen.de/en/universit...
uni-tuebingen.de
New Emmy Noether research group on fungal infections in plants
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Andrew Roger @andrewjroger.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
IQ-TREE 3: Phylogenomic Inference Software using Complex Evolutionary Models academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...
academic.oup.com
IQ-TREE 3: Phylogenomic Inference Software using Complex Evolutionary Models
Abstract. IQ-TREE (https://iqtree.github.io/) is a widely used open-source software tool for efficiently inferring phylogenetic trees under maximum likelih
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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Fun thread. Cool work, and make sure to read all the way to the end!
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The Sainsbury Laboratory @thesainsburylab.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
New Preprint in collaboration with GoogleDeepMind: AI-guided discovery of atypical protein assemblies The @kamounlab.bsky.social discovered an 11-protomer complex thanks to the Structural Novelty Index , a new way to use AlphaFold to find protein assemblies that break the pattern.
tsl.ac.uk
AI-guided discovery of atypical protein assemblies
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as AlphaFold have transformed structural biology by enabling accurate prediction of protein structures. However, their capacity to uncover new classes of…
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AmirAli Toghani @amiralito.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Breaking the Pattern with AlphaFold: Introducing the Structural Novelty Index by @KamounLab medium.com/p/breaking-t...
medium.com
Breaking the Pattern with AlphaFold: Introducing the Structural Novelty Index
The AI system AlphaFold has transformed how we predict protein structures. But sometimes the most interesting discoveries come from asking…
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Daniel Lüdke @danielluedke.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Some predictions are high-confidence. These go to eleven! Huge congrats to the whole team ❤️ Such a privilege to work with you all.
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Mauricio Contreras @mpcontreras.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
📢 The next @mpmijournal.bsky.social Focus Issue is now open for submissions: "Plant Immune Receptors in the Spotlight" 🌱🔬 Edited by @dinglab.bsky.social @clemmar.bsky.social @marischuster.bsky.social Rich Wilson and myself! Submit your best work by 31/10/26! 👇 apsjournals.apsnet.org/mpmireceptors
apsjournals.apsnet.org
Plant Immune Receptors in the Spotlight
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AmirAli Toghani @amiralito.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
One last thing...These go to eleven! 1️⃣1️⃣😃 Spinal Tap knew it all along… (10/10) youtu.be/4xgx4k83zzc?...
youtu.be
Spinal Tap - "These go to eleven...."
YouTube video by goto11tv
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AmirAli Toghani @amiralito.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Huge thanks to an incredible team for making this happen! And to @googledeepmind.zpravobot.news.ap.brid.gy for the co-scientist collaboration. (9/n) doi.org/10.64898/202...
doi.org
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AmirAli Toghani @amiralito.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
SNI is a scalable way to discover atypical protein assemblies. Works on any family with prior structural knowledge. Working on a complex? Give it a try. We’d love to see what you find! Happy to discuss collaborations as well :) (8/n) 💻 github.com/amiralito/So...
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AmirAli Toghani @amiralito.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
We asked @googledeepmind.zpravobot.news.ap.brid.gy AI co-scientist to propose SNI parameters based on priors. It rediscovered 4 of our expert-defined ones, added 3 of its own — and on its own would have flagged NRC7 as atypical. Agentic AI coming to structural biology. (7/n)
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AmirAli Toghani @amiralito.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
One-off, or a clade feature? We grabbed NRC7 orthologs from tomato and Nicotiana benthamiana. Expressed them, imaged them, counted protomers. Both: 11. It is indeed a feature of the NRC7 clade. 1️⃣1️⃣ (6/n)
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AmirAli Toghani @amiralito.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
UP TO ELEVEN - We expressed potato NRC7, imaged it by negative-stain EM, ran 2D classification. 🔬💥 Rings ~250 Å across — way bigger than canonical hexamers (~150 Å). 11 protomers. (5/n)
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AmirAli Toghani @amiralito.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Phylogeny and SNI parameters further highlight clades that deviate from canonical hexamers. SNI flagged NRC7 as the largest, atypical clade in the family. A telltale clue of an unconventional assembly? 🗯️ (4/n)
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AmirAli Toghani @amiralito.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
We scaled SNI to 637 non-redundant NRCs from 346 genomes across 85 Solanaceae species. Most clustered with canonical hexamers. Five clades didn’t. (3/n) doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
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AmirAli Toghani @amiralito.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
SNI quantifies AlphaFold models based on features that define canonical protein complexes, incorporating prior knowledge. We applied it to NRC-type NLR immune receptors—typically hexameric—and it cleanly separates canonical hexamers from structural outliers. (2/n)
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