Involvement of Adapter Protein Complex 4 in Hypersensitive Cell Death Induced by Avirulent Bacteria.

Plant immunity to avirulent bacterial pathogens is associated with subcellular membrane dynamics including fusion between the vacuolar and plasma membranes, resulting in hypersensitive cell death. Here, we report that ADAPTOR PROTEIN COMPLEX-4 (AP-4) subunits are involved in plant immunity associated with hypersensitive cell death. We isolated a mutant with a defect in resistance to an avirulent strain of pv.

Hexose Oxidase-Mediated Hydrogen Peroxide as a Mechanism for the Antibacterial Activity in the Red Seaweed Ptilophora subcostata.

Marine algae have unique defense strategies against microbial infection. However, their mechanisms of immunity remain to be elucidated and little is known about the similarity of the immune systems of marine algae and terrestrial higher plants. Here, we suggest a possible mechanism underlying algal immunity, which involves hexose oxidase (HOX)-dependent production of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2).

A red-emitting ratiometric fluorescent probe based on a benzophosphole P-oxide scaffold for the detection of intracellular sodium ions.

We disclose the development of a ratiometric fluorescent probe based on a benzophosphole P-oxide and its application for the detection of intracellular Na(+) ions. Excitation by visible light induced red emission from this probe in water, which was subjected to a hypsochromic shift upon complexation with Na(+). Based on this change, a ratiometric analysis enabled us to visualise changes in the Na(+) concentration in living mammalian cells.

The ER body, a new organelle in Arabidopsis thaliana, requires NAI2 for its formation and accumulates specific beta-glucosidases.

Plants develop various ER-derived structures with specific functions. The ER body found in Arabidopsis thaliana is a spindle-shaped structure. ER bodies accumulate in epidermal cells in seedlings or are induced by wounding.

A novel membrane fusion-mediated plant immunity against bacterial pathogens.

Plants have developed their own defense strategies because they have no immune cells. A common plant defense strategy involves programmed cell death (PCD) at the infection site, but how the PCD-associated cell-autonomous immunity is executed in plants is not fully understood. Here we provide a novel mechanism underlying cell-autonomous immunity, which involves the fusion of membranes of a large central vacuole with the plasma membrane, resulting in the discharge of vacuolar antibacterial proteins to the outside of the cells, where bacteria proliferate.

Constitutive and inducible ER bodies of Arabidopsis thaliana accumulate distinct beta-glucosidases.

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) body is an ER-related organelle that accumulates high levels of PYK10, a beta-glucosidase with an ER retention signal. Constitutive ER bodies are present in the epidermal cells of cotyledons, hypocotyls and roots of young Arabidopsis seedlings, but absent in rosette leaves. When leaves are wounded, ER bodies are induced around the wounding site of the leaves (inducible ER bodies).