iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Be careful…better avoid pulling that. It is possible that Brexit happened the last time someone pulled that cord

Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

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.org

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Reposted by Dolf Weijers

Current Biology @currentbiology.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

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.com

Susana Coelho

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

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

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 😂

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Congratulations in this amazing work, Akira and colleagues! It is truly remarkable how our teams independently converged on the exact same protein module 😀😀😀

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Reposted by Dolf Weijers

Cecilia Borassi @ceciborassi.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

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

green-te.nl

Activities - GreenTE

Activities Webinars ”MechanoBioTalks – Mechanics, Materials and Living Matter” is a webinar series supported by the GreenTE consortium and organized […]

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Congratulations, Pierre-Marc and team!

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Thanks Andre! I suspect that your importantometer may need recalibration…there seems to be some bias 😂

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

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)

weijerslab.shinyapps.io

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

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)

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

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)

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

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)

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

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

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

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)

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

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)

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

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)

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

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

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

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)

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

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)

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

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...

doi.org

A SOSEKI-based coordinate system interprets global polarity cues in Arabidopsis - Nature Plants

It 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.

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Of course Karin, you are still young!

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Nooo!!! This triggers traumatic memories of someting like this happening to us a few years ago. Short circuit = no power for 10 days = RIP to tons of plants and experiments 😭😭😭. Good luck!

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Reposted by Dolf Weijers

Cecilia Borassi @ceciborassi.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

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

green-te.nl

Open PhD position: Modeling the mechanical regulation of plant development and regeneration - GreenTE

The opening is for a PhD research position within the field of mathematical or theoretical biology, computational physics, applied mathematics […]

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

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

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Belated good afternoon from Tübingen 😀

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Wow Andre, this is phenomenal! Such a cool approach!

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Wow Andre, this is phenomenal! Such a cool approach!

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Oded, your tradition is being copied. I recently walked up the stage to a walk-up song that came out of a random song generator (I think), and it totally defines how you start your talk (non-descript 80’s vibe in my case)

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

This was a wonderful, interdisciplinary collaboration led by Joris’s team (biophysics), and involving Carlo van Mierlo & JW Borst (biochemistry) and my team (in vivo biology). Kudos to Kasper and Bas and all!!! And I am truly jealous of Kasper ARFMAN’s name…😂

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Reposted by Dolf Weijers

Luis Alonso Baez @luisalonsobaez.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

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.org

The mechanical properties of Arabidopsis thaliana roots adapt dynamically during development and to stress

Brillouin microscopy reveals in vivo dynamics of mechanical properties during plant development and response to stress.

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

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...

sciencedirect.com

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Dolf Weijers @dolfweijers.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Bucket list item unlocked: listening to YYZ at YYZ 😀

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Reposted by Dolf Weijers

Cecilia Borassi @ceciborassi.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

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! 🌱💻

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