Abstract

Programmed cell death (PCD) is a genetically controlled pathway that plants can use to selectively eliminate redundant or damaged cells. In addition to its fundamental role in plant development, PCD can often be activated as an essential defense response when dealing with biotic and abiotic stresses. For example, localized, tightly controlled PCD can promote plant survival by restricting pathogen growth, driving the development of morphological traits for stress tolerance such as aerenchyma, or triggering systemic pro-survival responses. Relatively little is known about the molecular control of this essential process in plants, especially in comparison to well-described cell death models in animals. However, the networks orchestrating transcriptional regulation of plant PCD are emerging. Transcription factors (TFs) regulate the clusters of stimuli inducible genes and play a fundamental role in plant responses, such as PCD, to abiotic and biotic stresses. Here, we discuss the roles of different classes of transcription factors, including members of NAC, ERF and WRKY families, in cell fate regulation in response to environmental stresses. The role of TFs in stress-induced mitochondrial retrograde signaling is also reviewed in the context of life-and-death decisions of the plant cell and future research directions for further elucidation of TF-mediated control of stress-induced PCD events are proposed. An increased understanding of these complex signaling networks will inform and facilitate future breeding strategies to increase crop tolerance to disease and/or abiotic stresses.

Highlights

  • Programmed cell death (PCD) is a genetically controlled pathway of organized cell destruction (Danon et al, 2000)

  • Increasing numbers of Transcription factors (TFs) are implicated in the transcriptional control of stressinduced cell fate decisions in plants

  • Details of the signaling pathways associated with the individual TFs are emerging (Table S1), an integrative-analysis of gene regulatory network activated during PCD induced by abiotic and biotic stresses is required

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Summary

Introduction

Programmed cell death (PCD) is a genetically controlled pathway of organized cell destruction (Danon et al, 2000). TFs in Environmental PCD Regulation stresses, for example, selective cell death triggered in the root stem cell niche was recently identified as an integral part of the cold acclimation process (Hong et al, 2017). There is a growing pressure to elucidate the complex regulatory networks behind plant pro-survival strategies, including those involving the tightly controlled activation of PCD in specific cells in response to environmental stimuli. The bona fide core PCD machinery is mainly regulated post-translationally (Fuchs and Steller, 2011), there are exceptions: egl-1, the key activator of the execution phase of apoptotic cell death in Caenorhabditis elegans (Horvitz, 2003) is expressed at a detectable level predominantly in cells programmed to die (Conradt et al, 2016). Our aim is to discuss the role of TFs in PCD induced by various environmental stimuli, both abiotic and biotic in nature (Figure 1)

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