RIN4/NOI fragments utilize different N-end rules of degradation to fight off pathogens (Plant Physiol)
Plant Science Research WeeklyTo fight off invading pathogens, plants such as Arabidopsis are intrinsically programmed with a subset of defense responses often known as pattern-triggered immunity (PTI) and effector-triggered immunity (ETI). AvrRpt2, an effector secreted by the pathogen Pseudomonas syringe, is a protease that can…
PEN3 and PDR12 secrete camalexin to the apoplast to limit pathogen growth in Arabidopsis (Plant Cell)
Plant Science Research WeeklyPhytoalexins are important antimicrobial compounds that plants synthesize to fend off invading pathogens. In the Brassica family, the tryptophan (trp)-derived phytoalexin ‘camalexin’ provides broad-spectrum resistance against bacterial, fungal, and oomycete pathogens. The regulation of camalexin…
Immunity-growth Trade-off in Plants
Research, The Plant Cell, The Plant Cell: In a NutshellJing et al. reveal how danger-associated peptides inhibit root growth in plants in response to pathogen attack. Plant Cell (2018) https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.18.00145.
Background: Plants defend themselves against pathogens and pests through an innate immune system that is activated by pathogen-associated…
Review: Plant immunity, refining the model (Trends in Plant Sci and Curr Opin Plant Biol)
Plant Science Research WeeklyInteractions between plants and microorganisms occur in many different ways and on many different levels. Scientists have been attracted to this field of research because of the need to identify the agents causing infectious diseases in economically important crops. Models have been developed to describe…
Plant Calcium Channels Perceive the Hungry Caterpillar
Research, The Plant Cell: In a NutshellMeena et al. identify a Ca2+ channel involved in herbivory recognition.
Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00057
By Mukesh Kumar Meena, Ramgopal Prajapati, Deepthi Krishna and Jyothilakshmi Vadassery are from National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR), New Delhi, India
Background:…
Insight: Rapid evolution in plant – microbe interactions (New Phytol)
Plant Science Research WeeklyPlants and associated microbes co-exist and co-evolve over time. The rate of evolution is higher in pathogens as compared to plants. Although the phenotypic consequences of rapid evolution in pathogens are well studied, changes at genomic level are not as well known, and are the subject of a recent review…
Review: Exchanges at the plant-oomycete interface that influence disease (Plant Physiol)
Plant Science Research WeeklyThis is a great review by Judelson and Ah-Fong on the diverse signals that occur between plants and their oomycete pathogens. The authors start by describing the life- and infectivity-cycles of disease-causing oomycetes, including the familiar plant pathogens, "aggressive" Pythium and "stealthy" Phytophthora.…
Review: The plant immune system in heterogeneous environments (Curr Opin Plant Bio)
Plant Science Research WeeklyNobori and Tsuda review how the plant immune system is able to function in heterogeneous environments through its properties of resilience, tunability and balance. They define a resilient system as one where “output remains stable even when part of the system is disabled.” Abiotic factors such as…
Structure and activation of a plant NLR resistosome ($) (Science)
Plant Science Research WeeklyThe 2017 Chemistry Nobel Prize went to the developers of cryo-electron microscopy, and this method is transforming plant science as well as other life sciences. In a pair of back-to-back papers, Wang et al. used cryo-EM to examine how ZAR1, a CC-NLR protein [Coiled-coil (CC) nucleotide-binding (NB),…