How plants defend themselves
Keyword(s):
Unlike animals, plants cannot flee, fight or hide from predators. Plants lack mobile defender cells or an adaptive immune system and have instead evolved defences based on pre-formed barriers and inducible cellular responses regulated by local and systemic signals. The interaction between pathogen effectors and these defences sets up an intriguing molecular arms race between plants and pathogenic fungi, bacteria, viruses, viroids and nematodes.