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Antonino Malacrinò

@malacrino.bsky.social
92 followers 120 following 30 posts

Assistant Professor at Clemson University | #plant #microbiome

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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Wonderful to be with the @annalsapplbio.bsky.social Senior Editors in London. I am honored to step into the role of EiC and grateful for the warm welcome. Special thanks to Ricardo for his outstanding leadership and friendship — wishing him all the very best for his upcoming retirement!
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
🤖 The role of #holo-omics and machine learning in shaping the future of plant #health research
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
🧪 The potential of #microbiome-based solutions to enhance crop resilience and reduce reliance on #agrochemicals
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
🌾 The rise of emerging and re-emerging pathogens under #climate variability
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
In this paper, we discuss: 🔬 How #global changes are driving complex plant diseases
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
🌱 New paper out! We commonly frame diseases as one #pathogen, one host, one outcome. Here, we explore a different perspective: plants are #holobionts, complex systems intertwined with their #microbiomes, and their health depends on the stability of that entire network. doi.org/10.1093/hr/u...
doi.org
Plant health in the era of global changes, holobiont biology, and microbiome-based solutions
Abstract. Agriculture faces unprecedented challenges due to climate change, increasing food demand, and resource scarcity, which needs sustainable and inno
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Why this matters: 🔬 Early microbiome signals could help detect plant stress before disease symptoms emerge 🌾 Microbiome science can guide the design of beneficial consortia for crop protection 🌍 A whole-plant perspective strengthens One Health and sustainable agriculture approaches
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
In this study, we show that pathogens attacking plant roots can reorganize the leaf microbiome—even before visible symptoms appear. Using a tomato model system, we uncovered pathogen-specific shifts in microbial community structure, ecological strategies, and network stability in the phyllosphere.
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
🚀 New paper out! What happens below the soil doesn’t stay below the soil—it reshapes the microbiome on plant leaves 🌱 link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
Belowground pathogens rewire the phyllosphere microbiome in tomato plants - Plant and Soil
Background and aims Plant-associated microbiomes play a critical role in host health, yet the effects of belowground pathogens on aboveground microbiomes remain poorly understood. Since systemic plant...
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Key takeaways 👇 🦠 KVDS is multifactorial: environmental stress + soilborne microbes drive plant decline 🌍 Oomycetes consistently emerge as key organisms in the induction of KVDS 🧪 Management must be integrated: agronomy, rootstocks, biofumigation, and microbiome-based strategies
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
🌱 New paper out! We present the first comprehensive review on the #Kiwifruit Vine Decline Syndrome (KVDS) — a multifactorial disease severely impacting kiwifruit production in Italy and recently reported in France and Türkiye. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Kiwifruit Vine Decline Syndrome: etiology, mechanisms, and management of a multifactorial disease
The Kiwifruit Vine Decline Syndrome (KVDS) is becoming one of the most severe threats to kiwifruit cultivation in Italy, with potential to spread to o…
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
Plant-microbiome interactions are complex. Understanding how the #plant #holobiont works will provide us the tools to steer plant–microbiome interactions to improve agricultural sustainability and ecosystem resilience. 🌱✨🦠
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
🦠 However, the abundance of certain individual terpenoids did correlate with specific bacteria, suggesting that plant chemistry may still play a role in the interaction with beneficial microbes.
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
🧪 Surprisingly, the plant’s chemical profile—specifically its terpenoid composition—had little overall effect on shaping the leaf bacterial community.
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
Our results show that: 🌱 The plant’s maternal lineage and environment (field vs. greenhouse) had a significant impact on the composition of leaf bacteria.
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
In our latest study, we investigated how plant maternal effects, leaf chemical composition (chemotype), and environmental conditions influence the bacterial community on leaves, using Tanacetum vulgare (commonly known as tansy) as model. 🌼🌱
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
lants are not just passive organisms in their environment—they actively shape the microbial communities that live on them. 🌱🦠🌼
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
🌿 How do #plants shape their own #microbiome? New insights from our latest research! 🦠 Curious to learn more? Follow this thread and read our article here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... Thanks @chemecolcm.bsky.social, Ruth, and Shuqing for this amazing collaboration!
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Influences of plant maternal effects, chemotype, and environment on the leaf bacterial community
Plant maternal effects and growth environment, rather than terpenoid chemotype, determine the leaf microbial community of Tanacetum vulgare, but specific terpenoids are correlated with the abundance ...
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
🌱 With this study we peeked at microbiome evolution in natural environments. This can have important implications for environmental management, bioremediation, and for understanding microbiome evolution in non-model systems
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
🦠 While the taxonomic profile of the soil microbiome did not vary between high- and low-selenium soils, we found that the microbiomes thriving in high-selenium soils were enriched of several genes, including genes associated with selenium tolerance.
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
🧬 We then compared the metagenomes of high- and low-selenium soils, accounting for the different geological profile across sampling sites.
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
🏔️ We collect samples across the Rockies in sites with both high and low levels of Selenium - which comes with some perks!
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
🧪 Selenium can be highly toxic for microbes, plants, fish, and mammals. This heavy metal naturally occurs at high concentrations in locations around the globe, and creates a strong temporal selective pressure on the microbes in the soil.
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
🦠 New paper fresh out of press: the first results from a really cool system just out in #EnvironmentalMicrobiome 🦠 environmentalmicrobiome.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
environmentalmicrobiome.biomedcentral.com
Selenium alters the gene content but not the taxonomic composition of the soil microbiome - Environmental Microbiome
Background Microbiomes, essential to ecosystem processes, face strong selective forces that can drive rapid evolutionary adaptation. However, our understanding of evolutionary processes within natural...
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Thanks @symbionticism.bsky.social for leading this paper, and thanks to the Holobiont Biology Network for this amazing collaboration! The future for Holobiont Biology is bright ⭐
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
🚀 🎉 In the near future, the field will witness a new era of microbiome engineering and microbiome-based solutions. Imagine the possibility to engineer both plants and their microbiome to improve crop resistance towards pests and pathogens!
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
🧬 🔬 The next step is to continue digging into the mechanisms regulating the holobiont biology, ecology, and evolution by building new analytical tools and frameworks.
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
🦠 🌱 It's time to fully embrace the terms holobiont (host+microbiota) and hologenome (all holobiont genomes), unifying "[...] the seen and unseen biological worlds [...]". From now on, we don't look back.
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
🦠 Thrilled to share our perspective piece "The disciplinary matrix of holobiont biology" just out in Science ! 🦠 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
The disciplinary matrix of holobiont biology
Uniting life’s seen and unseen realms guides a conceptual advance in research
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Antonino Malacrinò @malacrino.bsky.social · 23/05/2024
Hello everybody! This is my first post here 🎉, and I thought I’d share some of our recent research on the #plant #microbiome 🌱🦠. In this study we investigated how soil microbiota and herbivory drive the assembly of plant microbiomes: www.nature.com/articles/s42.... More exciting news coming up soon!
nature.com
Soil microbiota and herbivory drive the assembly of tomato plant-associated microbial communities through different mechanisms - Communications Biology
This study shows that the soil microbial community and herbivory both influence the assembly of the plant-associated microbial communities, but their effects are generated through different mechanisms...
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