The emerging frontier of plant immunity's core hubs

• Published in: The FEBS journal Vol. 290; no. 13; pp. 3311 - 3335
• Main Authors: Iakovidis, Michail, Chung, Eui‐Hwan, Saile, Svenja C., Sauberzweig, Elke, El Kasmi, Farid
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.07.2023
• Subjects: agricultural applications; Agricultural production; ETI; Extreme weather; Food quality; Hubs; Immune system; NLRs; pathogen effectors; Pathogens; Plant Diseases; Plant Immunity; Plant pathology; Plants; PRRs; PTI; sensor and helper NLRs; suppression of immunity; World population; PTI; agricultural applications; PRRs; suppression of immunity; pathogen effectors; ETI; NLRs; sensor and helper NLRs; plant immunity
• ISSN: 1742-464X; 1742-4658
• DOI: 10.1111/febs.16549

The ever‐growing world population, increasingly frequent extreme weather events and conditions, emergence of novel devastating crop pathogens and the social strive for quality food products represent a huge challenge for current and future agricultural production systems. To address these challenges and find realistic solutions, it is becoming more important by the day to understand the complex interactions between plants and the environment, mainly the associated organisms, but in particular pathogens. In the past several years, research in the fields of plant pathology and plant–microbe interactions has enabled tremendous progress in understanding how certain receptor‐based plant innate immune systems function to successfully prevent infections and diseases. In this review, we highlight and discuss some of these new ground‐breaking discoveries and point out strategies of how pathogens counteract the function of important core convergence hubs of the plant immune system. For practical reasons, we specifically place emphasis on potential applications that can be detracted by such discoveries and what challenges the future of agriculture has to face, but also how these challenges could be tackled. Plants face numerous pathogens, which have evolved molecular patterns and effectors to counteract plant immune responses. Recent studies discovered conserved convergence hubs of cell surface and intracellular immune receptor signalling required for proper immune activation. Unravelling the complexities of these hubs will allow us to design: (A) more resistant crops, (B) crops tolerant to climate change effects, (C) crops suitable for controlled environment agriculture and (D) advanced agricultural applications and products.