Scientists from Sechenov University together with their Russian colleagues studied reaction of wheat plants to damage caused by pathogenic fungi. They examined activation of enzymes involved in cell death induced in response to infection. The research results and enzyme classification were published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

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Plant resistance to harmful microorganisms (pathogens) is largely determined by a set of enzymes encoded in DNA, which are involved in death of infected cells and prevent infection spreading. Such enzymes that provide protein breakdown are called proteases. 

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"We have discovered above all that activation of proteases found in infected plants does not involve enzymes with caspase-like or metacaspase-like activities. Although earlier it was assumed that such proteases initiate proteolytic cascade activation, that leads to cell death of the plant organism. We concluded that some other unique proteases might be involved in wheat early response to infection with both biotrophic and necrotrophic pathogens. Surely, this result should be confirmed experimentally using alternative methods. The discovery of programmed cell death commonly called apoptosis (in Greek 'falling off') was not only awarded by the Nobel prize, but also determined the scientific agenda of a significant number of research teams for many decades to come. At the turn of the century, it became clear that, despite the phenomenon of programmed cell death, plants do not have caspases. However, it was discovered that plants have other enzymes with caspase-like activities. Most likely, they just like in animals execute cell death processes in plant cells. However, our study has showed that among plant cell death activators in wheat there are enzymes that do not have caspase-like activities. It confirms once more the existence of different mechanisms of programmed cell death across eukaryotic organisms,"- told Prof. Andrey Zamyatnin, Director of the Institute of Molecular Medicine (Sechenov University), co-author of the article.

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The study was carried out by biologists of the Institute of Biomedical Chemistry, All Russian Research Institute of Phytopathology, A.N. Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology and Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics, Lomonosov Moscow State University. 

The press release you may find at the Global Sourse for Science News.