System of innate immunity in plants

Abstract

The review deals with the mechanisms of innate immunity in plants with a focus on families of pattern-recognition receptors and regard for recent data on complete sequencing of the genomes of several plant species. Plants utilize several families of such receptors, both membrane-bound and cytoplasmic ones, which contain conservative leucine-rich repeats. The lack of adaptive immunity and there to related rearrangements in genes encoding immune receptors in plants are partly compensated by mechanisms of "specific" immunity to counter particular pathogens; such mechanisms being fully encoded within a plant genome. At the level of intracellular signal transduction, as well as in respect of effector mechanisms, similarities between plant and animal innate immune systems can be found, although the latter has many additional aspects.