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Article Addendum
Life After Death: Are Autophagy Genes Involved in Cell Death and Survival During Plant Innate Immune Responses?
Montrell Seay and S.P. Dinesh-Kumar
volume 1 | issue 3
October/November/December 2005Pages: 185 - 186
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It has not escaped the attention of the plant disease resistance community that the vacuole is rapidly emerging as a central player in the execution of cell death. On the one hand the targeted destruction of the vacuole—from the inside out—by vacuolar processing enzymes (VPE) is required to induce PCD in pathogen-infected cells. On the other hand, an intact vacuole is vital for a functional autophagic response to ensure survival of uninfected cells. At face value, the two responses seem to represent distinct resistance mechanisms that operate at divergent branch points and their use of the vacuole merely coincidental. However, closer examination has led us to propose an interesting hypothesis that accounts for these two opposing roles of the vacuole in both VPE-mediated PCD and autophagy-dependent cell survival. During initial infection, we propose a mechanism similar to the CPY transport pathway in yeast wherein select ATG genes are needed for VPE transport, vacuolar processing and initiation of PCD. Later during infection, autophagy-specific genes are needed for autophagosome formation, sequestration of VPE preproteins and VPE degradation.
We now provide open access to journal articles published online for one year or more. This article may be downloaded at the following link:
Download PDF If the document does not open, please right-click on the link (control-click on a Macintosh) and select the option to save the file to disk.