Plant As sessile organisms, plants cannot run away from dangers and must constantly survey their surroundings to make appropriate responses by modifying their metabolism or development. Advances in the past two decades have revealed numerous pattern recognition receptors and kinases, as well as families of small signaling peptides that can act as phytocytokines, which play key roles in signal perception and propagation for a multitude of defense and developmental responses. However, the mechanisms coordinating these responses at the cellular and organismal levels remain poorly understood. Recently, the highly conserved plant metacaspase family in plants emerged as a versatile switch that plays multiple and complex roles from early signal perception to downstream signal propagation. In this talk, I will summarize the latest advances in describing plant metacaspase functions in general, and then focus on their intricate roles to orchestrate the complex wounding response in particular.

Eventlocation

IPK Lecture Hall and Zoom