Keeping Up With the Pathogens: The Role of SUMOylation in Plant Immunity
Rebecca Morrell and Ari Sadanandom
from: SUMOylation and Ubiquitination: Current and Emerging Concepts (Edited by: Van G. Wilson). Caister Academic Press, U.K. (2019) Pages: 489-500.
Abstract
Owing to the changing, challenging pressures the plant pathogens can exert on hosts, plants require mechanisms to quickly sense and respond to them. Post-translational modifications (PTMs) provide a molecular level of control that can rapidly alter the stability, interaction and localisation of proteins. SUMO is being increasingly implicated as a critical modifier affecting plant susceptibility at all stages of pathogen disease progression. This review highlights how in pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMP)-triggered immunity (PTI) on pathogen detection a PAMP receptor is SUMOylated to enable downstream pathogen defence genes. In effector-triggered susceptibility (ETS) pathogens exploit the plants endogenous SUMO system to aid disease progression, injecting SUMO proteases into the plant cells. Finally, in effector-triggered immunity (ETI), many mutants in the SUMO system show increased disease resistance due to elevated levels of salicylic acid and the consequential downstream signalling of pathogen defence genes. The research presented aims to highlight the critical role SUMO plays in plant immunity, not only in SUMOylating critical pathogen defence molecules, but also indirectly by affecting important hormone signalling pathways involved in pathogen defence read more ...
