Role of ubiquitin in plant cell death

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Programmed cell death in plants occurs in at least three contexts. Firstly, developmental processes such as formation of vascular tissue employ cell death to shape plant tissues. Secondly, defense against pathogens frequently involves the hypersensitive response, a rapid form of programmed cell death. Thirdly, programmed cell death in the form of senescence serves to mobilize nutrients from older plant parts to growing parts and to seeds. All of these processes are incompletely understood, and manipulation of their induction and extent would provide immediate benefits to agriculture. The ubiquitin proteasome pathway is the major route for destruction of unwanted proteins in the eukaryotic cell. In animals, the pathway has a pivotal role in regulating programmed cell death. We have previously demonstrated that the pathway is also involved in plant cell death processes. In this application, we propose to investigate connections between ubiquitin and plant cell death at the molecular level, using mutants and assay systems developed in our preliminary work.