Plant Immunity and Disease Resistance Mechanisms

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Protection and Biotic Interactions".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2025 | Viewed by 1081

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Plant Medicine, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung, Taiwan
Interests: biological control; plant pests; fermentation; plant pathogenic bacteria; plant immunity; plant pathology
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues, 

The control of plant diseases has always been a critical issue in agriculture. Understanding how plants utilize their intrinsic defense systems to reduce pathogen infections is a fascinating process. Over the past two decades, the concept of plant immunity has been more comprehensively established. The process of plant immune response primarily involves the recognition of pathogen-associated molecular patterns or effectors by receptors inside and outside of plant cells, which subsequently activates the plant's defense pathways. The strength of the plant’s immune response often determines whether the plant can exhibit disease resistance. Furthermore, these defense pathways can also be triggered by molecules released from damaged plant tissues or by microorganisms in the plant’s growth environment. Exploring the diverse mechanisms that initiate plant defense pathways is of great significance, and bridging the gap between mechanistic research and practical applications remains a crucial aspect of agricultural science. 

This Special Issue aims to include manuscripts focusing on the processes from the activation of plant defense pathways to the manifestation of plant disease resistance, as well as studies related to the regulation of plant defense responses using microorganisms. Both fundamental research and applied research fall within the scope of this Special Issue. 

Prof. Dr. Yi-Hsien Lin
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • agricultural management
  • disease control
  • induced resistance
  • plant defense
  • plant immunity
  • plant–pathogen interactions

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 4614 KiB  
Article
Phosphorylation of Plant Ferredoxin-like Protein Is Required for Intensifying PAMP-Triggered Immunity in Arabidopsis thaliana
by Tzu-Yi Chen, Rui-Wen Gong, Bo-Wei Chen and Yi-Hsien Lin
Plants 2025, 14(13), 2044; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants14132044 - 3 Jul 2025
Viewed by 769
Abstract
The immune response triggered when plant cell surface receptors recognize pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) is known as PAMP-triggered immunity (PTI). Several studies have demonstrated that extracellular plant ferredoxin-like protein (PFLP) can enhance PTI signaling, thereby conferring resistance to bacterial diseases in various plants. [...] Read more.
The immune response triggered when plant cell surface receptors recognize pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) is known as PAMP-triggered immunity (PTI). Several studies have demonstrated that extracellular plant ferredoxin-like protein (PFLP) can enhance PTI signaling, thereby conferring resistance to bacterial diseases in various plants. The C-terminal casein kinase II (CK2) phosphorylation region of PFLP is essential for strengthening PTI. However, whether phosphorylation at this site directly enhances PTI signaling and consequently increases plant disease resistance remains unclear. To investigate this, site-directed mutagenesis was used to generate PFLPT90A, a non-phosphorylatable mutant, and PFLPT90D, a phospho-mimetic mutant, for functional analysis. Based on the experimental results, none of the recombinant proteins were able to enhance the hypersensitive response induced by the HrpN protein or increase resistance to the soft rot pathogen Pectobacterium carotovorum subsp. carotovorum ECC17. These findings suggest that phosphorylation at the T90 residue might be essential for PFLP-mediated enhancement of plant immune responses, implying that this post-translational modification is likely required for its disease resistance function in planta. To further explore the relationship between PFLP phosphorylation and endogenous CK2, the Arabidopsis insertion mutant cka2 and the complemented line CKA2R were analyzed under treatment with flg22Pst from Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato. The effects of PFLP on the hypersensitive response, rapid oxidative burst, callose deposition, and susceptibility to soft rot confirmed that CK2 is required for these immune responses. Furthermore, expression analysis of PTI-related genes FRK1 and WRKY22/29 in the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway demonstrated that CK2 is necessary for PFLP to enhance flg22Pst-induced immune signaling. Taken together, these findings suggest that PFLP enhances A. thaliana resistance to bacterial soft rot primarily by promoting the MAPK signaling pathway triggered by PAMP recognition, with CK2-mediated phosphorylation being essential for its function. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plant Immunity and Disease Resistance Mechanisms)
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