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Networking by small-molecule hormones in plant immunity

Nature Chemical Biology volume 5, pages 308–316 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Plants live in complex environments in which they intimately interact with a broad range of microbial pathogens with different lifestyles and infection strategies. The evolutionary arms race between plants and their attackers provided plants with a highly sophisticated defense system that, like the animal innate immune system, recognizes pathogen molecules and responds by activating specific defenses that are directed against the invader. Recent advances in plant immunity research have provided exciting new insights into the underlying defense signaling network. Diverse small-molecule hormones play pivotal roles in the regulation of this network. Their signaling pathways cross-communicate in an antagonistic or synergistic manner, providing the plant with a powerful capacity to finely regulate its immune response. Pathogens, on the other hand, can manipulate the plant's defense signaling network for their own benefit by affecting phytohormone homeostasis to antagonize the host immune response.

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Figure 1
Figure 2: Disease symptoms on Arabidopsis leaves caused by the necrotrophic fungus Botrytis cinerea, the biotrophic oomycete Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis and the hemibiotrophic bacterium Pseudomonas syringae.
Figure 3: Simplified schematic representation of the plant immune system.
Figure 4: Schematic representation of systemically induced immune responses.
Figure 5: Simplified schematic representation of the SA, JA and ET signaling pathways.
Figure 6: Networking by phytohormones in the plant immune response.

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Acknowledgements

The authors of this review are supported by VICI grant no. 865.04.002 of the Earth and Life Sciences Foundation, which is subsidized by the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research (NWO); the Centre for BioSystems Genomics (CBSG), which is part of the Netherlands Genomics Initiative of the NWO; and project T3-103 of the Top Institute Pharma.

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  1. Department of Biology, Plant-Microbe Interactions, Faculty of Science, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Corné M J Pieterse, Antonio Leon-Reyes, Sjoerd Van der Ent & Saskia C M Van Wees

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Correspondence to Corné M J Pieterse.

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Pieterse, C., Leon-Reyes, A., Van der Ent, S. et al. Networking by small-molecule hormones in plant immunity. Nat Chem Biol 5, 308–316 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.164

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