Abstract
A remarkable example has been discovered of a plant tuning its immune defence against a pathogen. The tuning consists of maximal expression of the relevant genes at the time of day when attack is most likely. See Letter p.110 Circadian rhythms regulate a wide variety of developmental and metabolic processes resulting in enhanced fitness. This study of plant defence against the fungal pathogen Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis, which causes downy mildew disease in Arabidopsis plants, reveals a link between the plant innate immune responses and the clock. The central circadian regulator CCA1 is shown to regulate a novel set of genes involved in R-gene-mediated defence. The mechanism allows plants to 'anticipate' infection at dawn when the pathogen normally disperses its spores.
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