Cysteine proteinases and programmed cell death in tomato

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The controlled suicide, or programmed death, of particular cells and tissues is a natural part of development in most multicellular organisms. In plants, the formation of the water conducting tissue, the "wood" in trees, is absolutely dependent on the programmed death of the cells that will be directly involved in water conduction. The process is also important in the formation of supportive tissues, the protective bark of trees, and in the response of plants to pathogen invasion. Senescence, the processes leading to leaf fall in autumn is also a consequence of programmed cell death. How the process is controlled in plants, however, is not fully understood. We are investigating the role of a group of particular enzymes involved in separate occurrences of programmed cell in various plants, using tomato as our model system. The various protein digesting enzymes have key roles in both early and late stages of the death process. Understanding of how the cells and the plant control where and when the enzymes appear and how they are activated should allow us to gain a more complete understanding of the entire program controlling the plant cell death process.