Self-consuming innate immunity in Arabidopsis

Programmed cell death (PCD) associated with the pathogen-induced hypersensitive response (HR) is a hallmark of plant innate immunity. HR PCD is triggered upon recognition of pathogen effector molecules by host immune receptors either directly or indirectly via effector modulation of host targets. However, it has been unclear by which molecular mechanisms plants execute PCD during innate immune responses. We recently examined HR PCD in autophagy-deficient Arabidopsis knockout mutants (atg) and find that PCD conditioned by one class of plant innate immune receptors is suppressed in atg mutants. Intriguingly, HR triggered by another class of immune receptors with different genetic requirements is not compromised, indicating that only a specific subset of immune receptors engage the autophagy pathway for HR execution. Thus, our work provides a primary example of autophagic cell death associated with innate immune responses in eukaryotes as well as of pro-death functions for the autophagy pathway in plants.