Benjamin Schwessinger

Contacts
Group membership
Benjamin has been working on plants and fungi in various aspects from signalling to genomics and from biochemistry to bioinformatics. He started off with Arabidopsis before moving to rice and Xanthomonas. His current work is focused on fungi called rusts with a focal point on the wheat stripe rust fungus Puccinia striiforims f. sp. tritici. Benjamin is fascinated by biology in general and by observing living systems in interaction.
Twitter: @schwessinger
Blog: http://blushgreengrassatafridayafternoon.wordpress.com/bio-2/
Radio Podcast on Plant Immunity
Academic Education and Employment
late-2018 ARC Future Fellow and independent group leader at ANU
05/2015-ongoing Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) fellow working with John Rathjen
01/2014-05/2015 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, USA
Research Associate
07/2011-04/2015 University of California, Davis, USA
Postdoctoral Research Scientist in the laboratory of Pamela Ronald
10/2010-04/2011 The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich, UK
Postdoctoral Research Scientist in the laboratory of Cyril Zipfel
10/2007- 09/2010 The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich, UK
3-year PhD in the laboratory of Cyril Zipfel
10/2006-09/2007 John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK
Rotation Year of the 4 year PhD program
10/2004-07/2006 University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
Graduation in Plant Science, B. Sc. with Honours First Class Degree
09/2002-09/2004 University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
Study of Biochemistry until the pre-Diploma
Fellowships/Scholarships
late-2018 Future Fellowship 2018, Australia
10/2015-09/2018 Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA), Australia
07/2012-ongoing Human Frontier Science Program Long-Term Fellowship, International
01/2012-06/2012 European Molecular Biology Organization Long-Term Fellowship, Europe
10/2006-09/2010 Rotation PhD Scholarship John Innes Centre and The Sainsbury Laboratory, UK
05/2005- 06/2006 Sainsbury Undergraduate Studentship in Plant Science, UK
10/2002-07/2006 Scholarship for Intellectually Gifted People of the State of Bavaria, Germany
09/2002-09/2010 Scholarship of e-fellows.net, Germany
Awards
07/2011 John Innes Foundation Prize for Excellence in Scientific Research, UK
09/2006 Short-listed for the SET Student of the Year Awards in 2006, UK
07/2006 Plant Science Scholarship of the University of Glasgow, UK
06/2005 Lang Scholarship (Botany) of the University of Glasgow, UK
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Ignition Grant, 2019
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HFSP Long-Term Fellowship , 2012
Research interests
I focus my research on plant-microbe interactions, biochemical signal transduction mechanisms, genomics and host-microbe co-evolution. Specifically, I study the interaction between the stripe rust fungus Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici, its environment, and its hosts with a focus on wheat. This obligate biotrophic fungus belongs to the order Puccinales, members of which cause rust disease on a wide variety of plant species. P. striiformis f. sp. tritici has an intriguing life cycle involving five different spore types and two unrelated plant hosts. It’s capacity to rapidly evolve and infect large areas of wheat in its asexual dihaploid spore stage makes it one of the major biotic limitation of wheat production with estimated losses of $ 1 billion USD globally. Despite its importance we lack any detailed understanding of the molecular, biochemical, and cellular mechanisms regulating its development, its infection processes, and its molecular evolution in agricultural and natural ecosystems. My desire to close these gaps in our knowledge leads to the three major goals of my five to seven years’ research program:
- Identify the cellular and molecular mechanisms of host colonization
- Identify and functionally characterize multiple fungal pathogenicity factors contributing to host adaptation
- Uncover the contribution of its genome architecture to host adaptation
Projects
- Supervisor, Wheat immunity and applied synthetic biology
- Principal investigator, Uncovering the hare microbiome
- Researcher, Bioinformatics and gene discovery in wheat rust pathogens
# refereed publications: 37
# public preprints: 3
# of first author publications: 9
# of co-first author publications: 7
# of corresponding author publications: 9
h-index 19, m-index 2, 3471 citations (Google Scholar, 06/2018)
[OA] represents publication in open access journals
# represents shared first authorship
$ represents corresponding author
Junior researchers supervised by Dr Schwessinger are underlined
Citation data is from Google Scholar, June 2018
Peer-reviewed Journal Articles
- [OA] Thomas, N.C., Oksenberg, N., Liu, F., Caddell, D., Nalyvayko, A., Nguyen, Y., Schwessinger, B.$, Ronald, P.$, 2017. The Rice XA21 Ectodomain Fused to the Arabidopsis EFR Cytoplasmic Domain Confers Resistance to Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae. PeerJ 6, e4456.
Citations = 0
- [OA] Schwessinger, B.$, Sperschneider, J., Cuddy, W.$, Miller, M., Garnica, D., Taylor, J., Dodds, P., Figueroa, M., Robert, P., Rathjen, J.$, 2017. A near complete haplotype-phased genome of the dikaryotic wheat stripe rust fungus Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici reveals high inter-haplome diversity. mBio 9, e02275-17
Citations = 2
- [OA] Miller, M.E., Zhang, Y., Omidvar, V., Sperschneider, J., Schwessinger, B., Raley, C., Palmer, J.M., Garnica, D., Upadhyaya, N., Rathjen, J., Taylor, J.M., Park, R.F., Dodds, P.N., Hirsch, C.D., Kianian, S.F., Figueroa, M., 2018. De Novo Assembly and Phasing of Dikaryotic Genomes from Two Isolates of Puccinia coronata f. sp. avenae, the Causal Agent of Oat Crown Rust. mBio 9, e01650-17.
Citations = 3
- [OA] Pornsiriwong, W., Estavillo, G.M., Chan, K.X., Tee, E.E., Ganguly, D., Crisp, P.A., Phua, S.Y., Zhao, C., Qiu, J., Park, J., Yong, M.T., Nisar, N., Yadav, A.K., Schwessinger, B., Rathjen, J., Cazzonelli, C.I., Wilson, P.B., Gilliham, M., Chen, Z.-H., Pogson, B.J., 2017. A chloroplast retrograde signal, 3’-phosphoadenosine 5’-phosphate, acts as a secondary messenger in abscisic acid signaling in stomatal closure and germination. Elife 6. doi:10.7554/eLife.23361
Citations = 22
- [OA] Pruitt, R.N., Joe, A., Zhang, W., Feng, W., Stewart, V., Schwessinger, B., Dinneny, J.R., Ronald, P.C., 2017. A microbially derived tyrosine-sulfated peptide mimics a plant peptide hormone. New Phytol. 215, 725–736. doi:10.1111/nph.14609
Citations = 2
- [OA] Schwessinger, B.$, 2017. Fundamental wheat stripe rust research in the 21st century. New Phytol. 213, 1625–1631. doi:10.1111/nph.14159
Citations = 13
- [OA] Singh, V., Perraki, A., Kim, S.Y., Shrivastava, S., Lee, J.H., Zhao, Y., Schwessinger, B., Oh, M.-H., Marshall-Colon, A., Zipfel, C., Huber, S.C., 2017. Tyrosine-610 in the Receptor Kinase BAK1 Does Not Play a Major Role in Brassinosteroid Signaling or Innate Immunity. Front. Plant Sci. 8. doi:10.3389/fpls.2017.01273
Citations = 0
- Thynne, E., Saur, I.M.L., Simbaqueba, J., Ogilvie, H.A., Gonzalez-Cendales, Y., Mead, O., Taranto, A., Catanzariti, A.-M., McDonald, M.C., Schwessinger, B., Jones, D.A., Rathjen, J.P., Solomon, P.S., 2017. Fungal phytopathogens encode functional homologues of plant rapid alkalinization factor (RALF) peptides. Mol. Plant Pathol. 18, 811–824. doi:10.1111/mpp.12444
Citations = 17
- Bahar, O., Mordukhovich, G., Luu, D.D., Schwessinger, B., Daudi, A., Jehle, A.K., Felix, G., Ronald, P.C., 2016. Bacterial Outer Membrane Vesicles Induce Plant Immune Responses. Mol. Plant Microbe Interact. 29, 374–384. doi:10.1094/MPMI-12-15-0270-R
Citations = 11
- Kohler, A.C., Chen, L.-H., Hurlburt, N., Salvucci, A., Schwessinger, B., Fisher, A.J., Stergiopoulos, I., 2016. Structural Analysis of an Avr4 Effector Ortholog Offers Insight into Chitin Binding and Recognition by the Cf-4 Receptor. Plant Cell 28, 1945–1965. doi:10.1105/tpc.15.00893
Citations = 4
- Schwessinger, B., Li, X., Ellinghaus, T.L., Chan, L.J.G., Wei, T., Joe, A., Thomas, N., Pruitt, R., Adams, P.D., Chern, M.S., Petzold, C.J., Liu, C.C. $, Ronald, P.C. $, 2016. A second-generation expression system for tyrosine-sulfated proteins and its application in crop protection. Integr. Biol. 8, 542–545. doi:10.1039/C5IB00232J
Citations = 2
- [OA] Thomas, N.C.#, Schwessinger, B.#, Liu, F., Chen, H., Wei, T., Nguyen, Y.P., Shaker, I.W.F., Ronald, P.C., 2016. XA21-specific induction of stress-related genes following Xanthomonas infection of detached rice leaves. PeerJ 4, e2446. doi:10.7717/peerj.2446
Citations = 1
- Lao, J., Sharma, M.K., Sharma, R., Fernández-Niño, S.M.G., Schmutz, J., Ronald, P.C., Heazlewood, J.L., Schwessinger, B. $, 2015. Proteome profile of the endomembrane of developing coleoptiles from switchgrass (Panicum virgatum). Proteomics 15, 2286–2290. doi:10.1002/pmic.201400487
Citations = 7
- [OA] Pruitt, R.N.#, Schwessinger, B. #,$, Joe, A., Thomas, N., Liu, F., Albert, M., Robinson, M.R., Chan, L.J.G., Luu, D.D., Chen, H., Bahar, O., Daudi, A., Vleesschauwer, D.D., Caddell, D., Zhang, W., Zhao, X., Li, X., Heazlewood, J.L., Ruan, D., Majumder, D., Chern, M., Kalbacher, H., Midha, S., Patil, P.B., Sonti, R.V., Petzold, C.J., Liu, C.C., Brodbelt, J.S., Felix, G., Ronald, P.C.$, 2015. The rice immune receptor XA21 recognizes a tyrosine-sulfated protein from a Gram-negative bacterium. Science Advances 1, e1500245. doi:10.1126/sciadv.1500245
Citations = 67
- [OA] Schwessinger, B. #, Bahar, O. #, Thomas, N., Holton, N., Nekrasov, V., Ruan, D., Canlas, P.E., Daudi, A., Petzold, C.J., Singan, V.R., Kuo, R., Chovatia, M., Daum, C., Heazlewood, J.L., Zipfel, C., Ronald, P.C., 2015a. Transgenic Expression of the Dicotyledonous Pattern Recognition Receptor EFR in Rice Leads to Ligand-Dependent Activation of Defense Responses. PLoS Pathog 11, e1004809. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1004809
Citations = 47
- [OA] Schwessinger, B. $, Bart, R., Krasileva, K.V., Coaker, G. $, 2015. Focus issue on plant immunity: from model systems to crop species. Front. Plant Sci 6, 195. doi:10.3389/fpls.2015.00195
Citations = 5
- Schwessinger, B.$, Rathjen, J.P.$, 2015. Changing SERKs and priorities during plant life. Trends in Plant Science 20, 531–533. doi:10.1016/j.tplants.2015.06.006
Citations = 9
- [OA] Cain, B., Budke, J.M., Wood, K.J., Sweeney, N.T., Schwessinger, B.$, 2014. How postdocs benefit from building a union. eLife Sciences 3, e05614. doi:10.7554/eLife.05614
Citations = 6
- [OA] Chen, X.#, Zuo, S.#, Schwessinger, B.#, Chern, M., Canlas, P.E., Ruan, D., Zhou, X., Wang, J., Daudi, A., Petzold, C.J., Heazlewood, J.L., Ronald, P.C., 2014. An XA21-Associated Kinase (OsSERK2) Regulates Immunity Mediated by the XA21 and XA3 Immune Receptors. Molecular Plant 7, 874–892. doi:10.1093/mp/ssu003
Citations = 68
- Macho, A.P. #, Schwessinger, B. #, Ntoukakis, V. #, Brutus, A., Segonzac, C., Roy, S., Kadota, Y., Oh, M.-H., Sklenar, J., Derbyshire, P., Lozano-Durán, R., Malinovsky, F.G., Monaghan, J., Menke, F.L., Huber, S.C., He, S.Y., Zipfel, C., 2014. A Bacterial Tyrosine Phosphatase Inhibits Plant Pattern Recognition Receptor Activation. Science 343, 1509–1512. doi:10.1126/science.1248849
Citations = 71
- Malinovsky, F.G., Batoux, M., Schwessinger, B., Youn, J.H., Stransfeld, L., Win, J., Kim, S.-K., Zipfel, C., 2014. Antagonistic Regulation of Growth and Immunity by the Arabidopsis Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Transcription Factor HOMOLOG OF BRASSINOSTEROID ENHANCED EXPRESSION2 INTERACTING WITH INCREASED LEAF INCLINATION1 BINDING bHLH1. Plant Physiol. 164, 1443–1455. doi:10.1104/pp.113.234625
Citations = 60
- Zuo, S., Zhou, X., Chen, M., Zhang, S., Schwessinger, B., Ruan, D., Yuan, C., Wang, J., Chen, X., Ronald, P.C., 2014. OsSERK1 regulates rice development but not immunity to Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae or Magnaporthe oryzae. J. Integr. Plant Biol. 56, 1179–1192. doi:10.1111/jipb.12290
Citations = 13
- [OA] Bahar, O.#, Pruitt, R.#, Luu, D.D., Schwessinger, B., Daudi, A., Liu, F., Ruan, R., Fontaine-Bodin, L., Koebnik, R., Ronald, P., 2014. The Xanthomonas Ax21 protein is processed by the general secretory system and is secreted in association with outer membrane vesicles. PeerJ 2, e242. doi:10.7717/peerj.242
Citations = 39
- Albrecht, C.#, Boutrot, F.#, Segonzac, C., Schwessinger, B., Gimenez-Ibanez, S., Chinchilla, D., Rathjen, J.P., Vries, S.C. de, Zipfel, C., 2012. Brassinosteroids inhibit pathogen-associated molecular pattern–triggered immune signaling independent of the receptor kinase BAK1. PNAS 109, 303–308. doi:10.1073/pnas.1109921108
Citations = 229
- Dardick, C., Schwessinger, B., Ronald, P., 2012. Non-arginine-aspartate (non-RD) kinases are associated with innate immune receptors that recognize conserved microbial signatures. Curr Opin Plant Biol 15, 358–66. doi:10.1016/j.pbi.2012.05.002
Citations = 55
- [OA] Han, S.-W. #, Lee, S.-W. #, Bahar, O., Schwessinger, B., Robinson, M.R., Shaw, J.B., Madsen, J.A., Brodbelt, J.S., Ronald, P.C., 2012. Tyrosine sulfation in a Gram-negative bacterium. Nat Commun 3, 1153. doi:10.1038/ncomms2157
Citations = 39
- Schwessinger, B., Ronald, P.C., 2012. Plant innate immunity: perception of conserved microbial signatures. Annu Rev Plant Biol 63, 451–482. doi:10.1146/annurev-arplant-042811-105518
Citations = 223
- Wang, E.#, Schornack, S.#, Marsh, J.F., Gobbato, E., Schwessinger, B., Eastmond, P., Schultze, M., Kamoun, S., Oldroyd, G.E.D., 2012. A Common Signaling Process that Promotes Mycorrhizal and Oomycete Colonization of Plants. Current Biology 22, 2242–2246. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2012.09.043
Citations = 170
- Ntoukakis, V.#, Schwessinger, B.#, Segonzac, C., Zipfel, C., 2011. Cautionary notes on the use of C-terminal BAK1 fusion proteins for functional studies. Plant Cell 23, 3871–8. doi:10.1105/tpc.111.090779
Citations = 49
- Roux, M.#, Schwessinger, B.#, Albrecht, C., Chinchilla, D., Jones, A., Holton, N., Malinovsky, F.G., Tor, M., de Vries, S., Zipfel, C., 2011. The Arabidopsis Leucine-Rich Repeat Receptor-Like Kinases BAK1/SERK3 and BKK1/SERK4 Are Required for Innate Immunity to Hemibiotrophic and Biotrophic Pathogens. Plant Cell 23, 2440–55. doi:10.1105/tpc.111.084301
Citations = 387
- [OA] Schwessinger, B., Roux, M., Kadota, Y., Ntoukakis, V., Sklenar, J., Jones, A., Zipfel, C., 2011. Phosphorylation-Dependent Differential Regulation of Plant Growth, Cell Death, and Innate Immunity by the Regulatory Receptor-Like Kinase BAK1. PLoS Genet 7, e1002046. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1002046
Citations = 293
- [OA] Haas, B.J., Kamoun, S., Zody, M.C., Jiang, R.H., Handsaker, R.E., Cano, L.M., Grabherr, M., Kodira, C.D., Raffaele, S., Torto-Alalibo, T., Bozkurt, T.O., Ah-Fong, A.M., Alvarado, L., Anderson, V.L., Armstrong, M.R., Avrova, A., Baxter, L., Beynon, J., Boevink, P.C., Bollmann, S.R., Bos, J.I., Bulone, V., Cai, G., Cakir, C., Carrington, J.C., Chawner, M., Conti, L., Costanzo, S., Ewan, R., Fahlgren, N., Fischbach, M.A., Fugelstad, J., Gilroy, E.M., Gnerre, S., Green, P.J., Grenville-Briggs, L.J., Griffith, J., Grunwald, N.J., Horn, K., Horner, N.R., Hu, C.H., Huitema, E., Jeong, D.H., Jones, A.M., Jones, J.D., Jones, R.W., Karlsson, E.K., Kunjeti, S.G., Lamour, K., Liu, Z., Ma, L., Maclean, D., Chibucos, M.C., McDonald, H., McWalters, J., Meijer, H.J., Morgan, W., Morris, P.F., Munro, C.A., O’Neill, K., Ospina-Giraldo, M., Pinzon, A., Pritchard, L., Ramsahoye, B., Ren, Q., Restrepo, S., Roy, S., Sadanandom, A., Savidor, A., Schornack, S., Schwartz, D.C., Schumann, U.D., Schwessinger, B., Seyer, L., Sharpe, T., Silvar, C., Song, J., Studholme, D.J., Sykes, S., Thines, M., van de Vondervoort, P.J., Phuntumart, V., Wawra, S., Weide, R., Win, J., Young, C., Zhou, S., Fry, W., Meyers, B.C., van West, P., Ristaino, J., Govers, F., Birch, P.R., Whisson, S.C., Judelson, H.S., Nusbaum, C., 2009. Genome sequence and analysis of the Irish potato famine pathogen Phytophthora infestans. Nature 461, 393–8. doi:10.1038/nature08358
Citations = 924
- Nekrasov, V., Li, J., Batoux, M., Roux, M., Chu, Z.H., Lacombe, S., Rougon, A., Bittel, P., Kiss-Papp, M., Chinchilla, D., van Esse, H.P., Jorda, L., Schwessinger, B., Nicaise, V., Thomma, B.P., Molina, A., Jones, J.D., Zipfel, C., 2009. Control of the pattern-recognition receptor EFR by an ER protein complex in plant immunity. Embo J 28, 3428–38. doi:10.1038/emboj.2009.262
Citations = 214
- Conti, L., Price, G., O’Donnell, E., Schwessinger, B., Dominy, P., Sadanandom, A., 2008. Small ubiquitin-like modifier proteases OVERLY TOLERANT TO SALT1 and -2 regulate salt stress responses in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell 20, 2894–908. doi:10.1105/tpc.108.058669
Citations = 120
- Schwessinger, B., Zipfel, C., 2008. News from the frontline: recent insights into PAMP-triggered immunity in plants. Curr Opin Plant Biol 11, 389–95. doi:10.1016/j.pbi.2008.06.001
Citations = 293
Peer-reviewed book chapter
- Schwessinger, B. $, Rathjen, J.P., 2017. Extraction of High Molecular Weight DNA from Fungal Rust Spores for Long Read Sequencing. Methods Mol. Biol. 1659, 49–57. doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-7249-4_5
Citations = 1
- Jones, J., Zipfel, C., Schwessinger, B., Roux, M., 2008. Genetic analysis of PAMP-triggered immunity in Arabidopsis, Biology of Plant-Microbe Interactions. International Society for Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions, St. Paul, Minnesota.
Citations = unknown
Publicly available preprints
Publicly available preprints
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[OA] McDonald, M.#, Schwessinger, B.#, Stewart, V., Ronald, P., 2017. Distribution and inheritance of a gene cluster encoding a sulfated tyrosine peptide in Xanthomonas spp. bioRxiv 149930. doi:10.1101/149930
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[OA] Schalamun, M., Kainer, D., Beavan, E., Nagar, R., Eccles, D., Rathjen, J., Lanfear, R., Schwessinger, B., 2018. A comprehensive toolkit to enable MinION long-read sequencing in any laboratory. bioRxiv 289579.
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[OA] Wang, W., Schalamun, M., Suarez, A.M., Kainer, D., Schwessinger, B., Lanfear, R., 2018. Assembly of chloroplast genomes with long- and short-read data: a comparison of approaches using Eucalyptus pauciflora as a test case. bioRxiv 320085.