Upon wounding a Ca2+ signal travels from the wound through the plant. In each cell the signal passes through the defence response gets activated. Now a new study from German researchers shows that two plastid located ion channels form a missing link in how Ca2+ activates the biosynthesis of jasmonic acid, one of the plant hormones that coordinate the defence response.
Tag Archives: Plant defence
Plants Talk—Just Not the Way You Think
Do plants really talk among themselves or is this all just chemistry with a bit of humanising sauce put in the mix.
Sounding the alarm
Early detection of a pathogen attack can prevent the spread of an infection. But how this early detection is then translated into warning for the rest of the plant is not known. Now British researchers show in Nature Plants using a reporter system that the alarm passes through the plant much faster than first thought.
Using the pathogens tricks to gain resistance
Plants and pathogens are involved in a tug of war. A lot of that fight takes place in the extracellular space, the space between cells, in plant tissues. There plants secrete an arsenal of defence molecules, like proteases, glycosidases and lipases. Pathogens do this as well including some inhibitors. So how come those inhibitors don’t inhibit the pathogen’s own arsenal?
Plant en Zo 