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Pathogen recognition and defense mechanisms in plants

Living creatures have an immune system that comprises specialized cells that go across the body in search of threats. There is also an adaptive immune response that is able to identify previously encountered pathogens and give immunity to repetitive infections. However, both mobile and adaptive immune cells are absent in the plant. The plant immune system only works at the level of individual cells, which are all the same.

Just as living creatures do, plants need to defend them against bacterial, viral, and fungal diseases, which are together called pathogenic diseases. A plant must be susceptible to the pathogen in order for infection to develop when the pathogen's capacity to attack the plant, as well as the plant's ability to build a successful defense, is influenced by environmental factors such as temperature. While we use terminology like attack and defense to describe the pathogen, it (pathogen) is doing just what other creatures do, taking nutrition from another creature's cells. In many cases, such interactions do not result in diseases; in fact, some of them are mutually advantageous to both the plants and the micro-organisms. However, we're concentrating on disease-causing organisms that have a negative impact on plants. Pathogens can enter the plants through openings in the outermost surface of the plant. These might be natural, like the pore-like stomata on leaves. Moreover, when the outside layer can be broken or the bug can penetrate the tissue of the plant and leave it exposed or even carry the infection.

Plants have a natural immune system that protects them from pathogens. It is divided into two phases. Plants identify microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs) of possible pathogens by means of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), which activate a basic defensive response, using the primary immune system. Plants also contain receptors that detect molecular patterns of cell wall damage as well as receptors that detect molecular patterns of infection consequences. This basic defensive response is suppressed by pathogens through effectors that enable them to induce diseases.

Resistance proteins (RPs), which generate a robust local defensive response that inhibits pathogen development, have given plants the capacity to identify effector-induced perturbations of host targets. The plant activates defensive systems if a pattern is identified. The pathogen's ability to multiply and spread to invade the plant is hampered as a result of these reactions. Some defensive reactions, such as alkalization or increased synthesis of antimicrobial chemicals, render the pathogen's surroundings hazardous to the plant cell. Plants rely on germline encoded PRRs and RPs for both primary and secondary immune responses. At the molecular level, this complicated system is regulated by chemicals that activate particular genes in the plant cell. These genes influence not just the synthesis of pathogen-fighting chemicals, but also the transmission of signals to other cells of the same plant, improving the plant's capacity to mobilize protections (a process known as "priming" the immune response).

Pathogens have developed resistance mechanisms in response to the plant's defense systems, which requires plants to develop their own changes to defensive systems. It's comparable to a military conflict, or as some refer to it, a "Red Queen" dynamic, in which one side is continually trying to stay up with the other.

A plant must be susceptible to the pathogen in order for infection to develop when the pathogen's capacity to attack the plant, as well as the plant's ability to build a successful defense, is influenced by environmental factors such as temperature.



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