The Lifecycle of the Plant Immune System

Abstract

Throughout their life span, plants confront an endless barrage of pathogens and pests. To successfully defend against biotic threats, plants have evolved a complex immune system responsible for surveillance, perception, and the activation of defense. Plant immunity requires multiple signaling processes, the outcome of which vary according to the lifestyle of the invading pathogen(s). In short, these processes require the activation of host perception, the regulation of numerous signaling cascades, and transcriptome reprograming, all of which are highly dynamic in terms of temporal and spatial scales. At the same time, the development of a single immune event is subjective to the development of plant immune system, which is co-regulated by numerous processes, including plant ontogenesis and the host microbiome. In total, insight into each of these processes provides a fuller understanding of the mechanisms that govern plant-pathogen interactions. In this review, we will discuss the “lifecycle” of plant immunity: the development of individual events of defense, including both local and distal processes, as well as the development and regulation of the overall immune system by ontogenesis regulatory genes and environmental microbiota. In total, we will integrate the output of recent discoveries and theories, together with several hypothetical models, to present a dynamic portrait of plant immunity.

Keywords:

• Defense
• development
• environment
• pathogens
• plant immunity
• signaling
• system
• virulence

Acknowledgements

We appreciate Dr. Richard Hilleary (Michigan State University), Dr. Yunhao Sun (Sun Yat-sen University), and Yexin Yang (Yale University) for providing critical advice during the development of this review.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation Plant-Biotic Interactions Program [IOS-1146128] and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences [1R01GM125743] awarded to BD.