Abstract
Microbes attempting to colonize plants are recognized through the plant immune surveillance system. This leads to a complex array of global as well as specific defense responses, which are often associated with plant cell death and subsequent arrest of the invader. The responses also entail complex changes in phytohormone signaling pathways. Among these, salicylic acid (SA) signaling is an important pathway because of its ability to trigger plant cell death. As biotrophic and hemibiotrophic pathogens need to invade living plant tissue to cause disease, they have evolved efficient strategies to downregulate SA signaling by virulence effectors, which can be proteins or secondary metabolites. Here we review the strategies prokaryotic pathogens have developed to target SA biosynthesis and signaling, and contrast this with recent insights into how plant pathogenic eukaryotic fungi and oomycetes accomplish the same goal.
Highlights
The plant hormone salicylic acid (SA) has been extensively studied because of its influence on various plant developmental processes as well as its role on resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses (Vlot et al, 2009)
While it is becoming increasingly clear that all biotrophic pathogens need to suppress SA signaling to cause disease the molecular details of how this is achieved by effectors in the various systems is only beginning to be understood
Given the small number of examples where pathogen effectors targets in these processes have been identified, it is probably not surprising to see little if any overlap between prokaryotic and eukaryotic virulence effector targets
Summary
Microbes attempting to colonize plants are recognized through the plant immune surveillance system. This leads to a complex array of global as well as specific defense responses, which are often associated with plant cell death and subsequent arrest of the invader. The responses entail complex changes in phytohormone signaling pathways. Salicylic acid (SA) signaling is an important pathway because of its ability to trigger plant cell death. As biotrophic and hemibiotrophic pathogens need to invade living plant tissue to cause disease, they have evolved efficient strategies to downregulate SA signaling by virulence effectors, which can be proteins or secondary metabolites.
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