Sign in

Ezgi Mehmetoglu Boz

@ezgiboz.bsky.social
53 followers 77 following 6 posts

PhD candidate at SLU in #LundbergLand 🌿 Trying to understand interactions between plants and beneficial microbes

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Ezgi Mehmetoglu Boz
Derek Severi Lundberg @derekseveri.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Three major insights: 1) CAST-based barcoding and gene disruption is straightforward, but requires screening and groundwork for quantitative use. 2) The Tn7 insertion locus, when it exists, needs critical evaluation. 3) “tagIMseq” is a versatile, rapid, and easy transposon mapping method
media.tenor.com
a man in a suit and tie is running in front of a blue background that says too long did n't read
ALT: a man in a suit and tie is running in front of a blue background that says too long did n't read
101
Reposted by Ezgi Mehmetoglu Boz
Derek Severi Lundberg @derekseveri.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
We confirmed rpoZ 3’ UTR insertion had no fitness penalty on plants, and targeted rpoZ in an uncharacterized bacterial pool with a triple tandem guide. After screening colonies (tagIMseq), we subcultured and sequenced genomes from positives, adding perfectly-tagged novel strains to our collection.
101
Reposted by Ezgi Mehmetoglu Boz
Derek Severi Lundberg @derekseveri.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
We targeted the rpoZ 3’ UTR in a Sphingomonad. We developed a rapid transposon mapping method, “tagIMseq”, leveraging tagmentation and @plasmidsaurus.bsky.social. It even works without a DNA prep on a resuspended colony! Most colonies were good, but many were not, so screening was important.
101
Reposted by Ezgi Mehmetoglu Boz
Derek Severi Lundberg @derekseveri.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
CASTs can target almost anywhere, so we searched for improved conserved “safe” sites as Tn7 alternatives. Regions between convergently terminating genes downstream of rpoZ in Sphingomonas, or pyrD in Pseudomonas, seemed much better. Both had conserved regions for efficient guides.
101
Reposted by Ezgi Mehmetoglu Boz
Derek Severi Lundberg @derekseveri.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
But we noticed something uncomfortable about the widely-used “safe” Tn7 site in Sphingomonas. In the majority of cases, insertions there would probably disrupt the next gene, because it was either too close or co-directional. We noticed the same situation in Pseudomonas.
101
Reposted by Ezgi Mehmetoglu Boz
Derek Severi Lundberg @derekseveri.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
The system let us detect and quantify our tagged strains simultaneously with the uncharacterized bacterial background in a complex host-associated environment.
101
Reposted by Ezgi Mehmetoglu Boz
Derek Severi Lundberg @derekseveri.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Amplicon seq quantitatively captured the barcodes (colors) and the native 16S (grey) of the strains. Fascinating that each barcode had a different amplification efficiency (a phenomenon previously reported), requiring empirically-determined correction factors.
101
Reposted by Ezgi Mehmetoglu Boz
Derek Severi Lundberg @derekseveri.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
We designed our RNA guides within conserved areas so each could be recycled for use on many different strains. We managed insertions in diverse strains, and we could even hit the right target with 5 mismatches in the guide!
101
Reposted by Ezgi Mehmetoglu Boz
Derek Severi Lundberg @derekseveri.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
In new work led by @ezgiboz.bsky.social, we adapted a single-vector CAST, and made a tag featuring a random DNA barcode between unique and 16S priming sites. We planned “neutral” tags at the Tn7 site downstream of glmS, and “disruptive” tags in a carotenoid gene. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
101
Ezgi Mehmetoglu Boz @ezgiboz.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
A quick thread summarizing our new bioRxiv preprint on using CASTs for DNA barcoding to tell "look-alike" bacteria apart (Sphingomonas edition)!! Enjoy the read! ✨
044
Reposted by Ezgi Mehmetoglu Boz
EkoEvo @ekoevo.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
📣Months have raced by, and this year’s committee is already hard at work bringing EEBST 2026 to life! Our abstract submission system is now officially open!! 🚀Deadline April 15th⏰ Join us in sunny Mersin for this exciting event by submitting your latest research at eebst.ekoevo.org Please share!
Flyer for the 12th Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Symposium, to be held on July 6–10, 2026, in Mersin, Türkiye. For registration and more information, please visit eebst.ekoevo.org
077
Ezgi Mehmetoglu Boz @ezgiboz.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
So happy to be part of the latest issue of New Phytologist! 🌿 Thanks for the kind feature!
072
Ezgi Mehmetoglu Boz @ezgiboz.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
Excited to be part of this #NewPhytologistNow webinar on Nov 4! 🌱
031
Reposted by Ezgi Mehmetoglu Boz
Tsung-Ta Yu @tsung-ta.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
Thanks to everyone who came by my poster today for discussion! #2025ISMPMI If you weren’t able to make it but still interested in the potential role native plasmids play within Sphingomonas-plant interactions. Can check it out now on Zenodo zenodo.org/records/1591...
zenodo.org
Small DNA, Big Impact? Exploring the role of plasmids in Sphingomonas – plant interactions
This poster was presented at the 2025 IS-MPMI, Cologne Submitted Abstract Plasmids provide traits that can enable bacteria to adapt to unique and changing environments. Sphingomonas, an often-benefici...
063
Reposted by Ezgi Mehmetoglu Boz
PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · 15/07/2025
In the greenhouse, #Arabidopsis with hyperactive ACD6 have stronger pathogen defenses but are smaller & make fewer seeds. @derekseveri.bsky.social @plantevolution.bsky.social &co show that in the open field both advantages & disadvantages of the allele disappear @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/465XPDR
A hyperactive ACD6 allele reduces growth and causes necrosis only in the greenhouse. Top:  Representative Arabidopsis thaliana rosettes from different genetic backgrounds. Yellow and blue labels represent descendants of a heterozygous ACD6 HIF line that are homozygous for either the Est-1 or the Col-0 allele of ACD6. Green and purple labels represent the Est-1 accession and the isogenic acd6 knockout null allele in that accession. Plants were grown in Tübingen in the greenhouse (GH-Tü), outdoors in the field in Tübingen (F-Tü), or outdoors in the field in Zurich (F-Z, a GMO-approved facility). Note the necrotic older leaves for greenhouse plants with the ACD6-Est-1 allele (red arrows). Bottom: Rosette size of individual plants, calculated by quantifying green pixels from images similar to those in the top panel. The line within each box represents the median. Boxes enclose the interquartile range (IQR) with whiskers extending to up to 1.5 times the IQR. Brackets indicate Mann–Whitney U-test results, with * indicating P < 0.05 after Benjamini–Hochberg correction for multiple testing across the four comparisons. Dotted lines extending from the mean of each distribution span the observed effect size, and a bootstrapped distribution of computed effect sizes [30] is shown in gray, centered on the mean of the second box in each pair (red dot). The black bar extending vertically from the red dot represents the 95% confidence interval of the effect size.
052
Reposted by Ezgi Mehmetoglu Boz
Derek Severi Lundberg @derekseveri.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
This work started nearly 10 years ago and was once my main postdoctoral project at @plantevolution.bsky.social before I slowed work on it to a trickle because it became confusing. But it always remained extremely interesting. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
journals.plos.org
A major trade-off between growth and defense in Arabidopsis thaliana can vanish in field conditions
In controlled greenhouse conditions, Arabidopsis thaliana plants with a hyperactive allele of the ACD6 gene have stronger pathogen defenses but are smaller and make fewer seeds, in a classic fitness t...
48242
Ezgi Mehmetoglu Boz @ezgiboz.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
Last week, I had a great time at the New Phytologist EiC Symposium: “Microbes as hidden or prominent players in plant life” in Tartu, Estonia! Honored and very happy to receive the Best Poster Award! ✨ Big thanks to the organizers and all the inspiring scientists I met! 🌱 @newphyt.bsky.social
3113