An interview with Jen Sheen.

Bacterial Effectors Target BAK1 to Disrupt MAMP Receptor-Signaling Complexes and Impede Plant Innate Immunity

Cell signalling and gene regulation Exploring new functions and actions of regulatory molecules

Plants are creative inventors of large families of regulatory molecules that serve dynamic and diverse roles in complex gene expression programs and signalling networks. The use of integrative genomic, genetic, cellular, biochemical and computational tools has been key to recent advances in our understanding of gene regulation, hormone signalling, immunity, cytokinesis, growth and morphogenesis...

Intercepting host MAPK signaling cascades by bacterial type III effectors.

The evolutionarily conserved MAP kinase (MAPK) cascades play essential roles in plant and animal innate immunity. A recent explosion of research has uncovered a myriad of virulence strategies used by pathogenic bacteria to intercept MAPK signaling through diverse type III effectors injected into host cells. Here, we review the latest literature and discuss the various mechanisms that pathogenic...

Nuclear Actions in Innate Immune Signaling

Innate immunity in plants and animals is mediated through pattern recognition receptors, which were thought to initiate signaling in the cytoplasm to activate defense pathways. Shen et al. (2006) and Burch-Smith et al. (2007) now provide compelling evidence that certain plant disease resistance proteins, which detect specific pathogenic effectors, act in the nucleus to trigger downstream signal...

Two-component signal transduction pathways in Arabidopsis.

The two-component system, consisting of a histidine (His) protein kinase that senses a signal input and a response regulator that mediates the output, is an ancient and evolutionarily conserved signaling mechanism in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The identification of 54 His protein kinases, His-containing phosphotransfer proteins, response regulators, and related proteins in Arabidopsis suggests...