Work by Genome Center scientists featured in latest issue of Developmental Cell journal

Artwork by Eunsook Park and Jeffrey L. Caplan

The latest issue of the journal Developmental Cell features a cover image taken from the work of scientists at UC Davis and the University of Delaware. The paper by Jeffrey Caplan et al. that appears in this issue concerns the role that chloroplasts play in plant defense responses that are triggered by bacteria and viruses. The cover image depicts how projections from chloroplasts known as stromules (in blue) surround a nucleus (in yellow) during a plant immune response. Genome Center Faculty Savithramma Dinesh-Kumar, one of the corresponding authors of this work, had this to say about the importance of the research:

We provide evidence that during pathogen infection tubular structures called stromules extend from chloroplasts in plant cells. The induced stromules establish connections with the nucleus to activate defense responses to induce death of any infected cells. Stromules in the neighboring uninfected cells may also transport defense molecules to the nucleus to limit spread of the pathogen from the infected cells. Although stromules were first described more than 50 years ago, this study provides the first evidence for their function in a specific biological process. Chloroplasts in plants seem to play an analogous function to the role of mitochondria in humans; they induce a cell suicide program during immune response in order to fend off pathogen infections.

The citation for this work is:

• Caplan et al. (2015) Chloroplast Stromules Function during Innate Immunity. Developmental Cell, 34, 1, 45–57