Papers

Ten papers, ordered to follow the topic taxonomy rather than by date. Each page lists every key finding with the figure, table or accession it came from.

• Resistosome architecture and oligomeric state
• An activated wheat CCG10-NLR immune receptor forms an octameric resistosomeMay 2026 · guo-2026-ccg10-resistosome

  An autoactive wheat CCG10-NLR assembles into an octameric resistosome, the largest plant NLR oligomer resolved so far, with its coiled-coil domain projecting away from the LRR rather than folding back against it.

• AI-guided discovery of atypical protein assembliesMay 2026 · toghani-2026-sni-undecamer

  A scoring framework that treats low-confidence AlphaFold models as signal rather than failure flagged the NRC7 clade as structurally odd, and electron microscopy then showed those proteins assemble into 11-mers instead of hexamers.

• A plant pathogen effector blocks stepwise assembly of a helper NLR resistosomeJune 2026 · seager-2026-avrcap1b-nrc3

  The Phytophthora infestans effector AVRcap1b jams the tomato helper NLR NRC3 partway through assembly, stalling it at three protomers, and in doing so shows that NRC resistosomes build up one subunit at a time.

• Sensor-helper communication in NLR networks
• A conserved structural logic underlies sensor-helper NLR communication in the NRC immune receptor networkMay 2026 · toghani-2026-sensor-helper-interface

  AlphaFold 3 predicts the transient Rx-NRC2 complex that a decade of co-immunoprecipitation could not capture, and reciprocal charge swaps across a predicted salt bridge confirm it.

• Calcium signalling and where immunity is executed
• A helper NLR channels organellar calcium to trigger plant immunityApril 2026 · ibrahim-2026-nrg1-chloroplast

  The helper NLR NRG1 works at the chloroplast envelope rather than the plasma membrane, draining stromal calcium into the cytosol through a coiled-coil funnel long enough to span a double membrane.

• Effector suppression of NLR function
• A potato late blight pathogen effector interacts with ENTH-domain protein TOL9a and an activated helper NLR to suppress immunityJune 2026 · madhuprakash-2026-avrcap1b-tol9a

  AVRcap1b binds the ENTH domain of the host trafficking protein NbTOL9a through one end and activated NbNRC2 through another, and needs both to suppress immunity, which makes it a bridge rather than an inhibitor.

• Effector recognition and its evolution
• Molecular mimicry of a pathogen virulence target by a plant immune receptorJune 2026 · gomezdelacruz-2026-mla3-mimicry

  The barley receptor MLA3 detects the blast effector Pwl2 by copying the binding surface of the host protein Pwl2 normally targets, which is the opposite trick to an integrated decoy.

• Autoinhibition and priming
• Surface immune signaling unlocks NLR activation through mRNA alternative splicingJuly 2026 · gao-2026-vnt1-splicing

  The potato late blight receptor Rpi-vnt1.1 is held inactive by an N-terminal extension, and surface immune signalling splices that extension out of the mRNA, so pattern recognition licenses the intracellular receptor before an effector ever arrives.

• Evolution of NLR repertoires
• Contrasting evolutionary patterns of helper and sensor NRC NLRs in lettuce reflect functional divergence following subfunctionalizationJuly 2026 · pai-2026-lettuce-nrc

  Lettuce carries a small, tractable NRC network of two helpers and nine functional sensors, and the sensors that depend on the ancient helper NRC0 have diversified far less than those that depend on the newer one.

• NLR immune receptors can exhibit tissue-specific expression patterns across legume speciesJanuary 2026 · marques-2026-legume-tissue

  Legume NLRs are more than twice as tissue-specific as genes generally, and they lean towards roots while the rest of the transcriptome leans towards leaves.