Abstract

The plant vasculature transports water, sugars, hormones, RNAs and proteins. Such critical functions need to be protected from attack by pests and pathogens or from damage by wounding. Plants have developed mechanisms to repair vasculature when such protections fail and to even initiate new vascular connections to tissues supporting symbionts. The developmental phenomena underlying vascular repair and rewiring are therefore critical for horticultural grafting, for plant infection and for mutualist associations with rhizosphere microbes. Despite the biological and economic interest, we are only beginning to understand how plants connect and reconnect their vasculature to a wide variety of organisms. Here, I discuss recent work and future prospects for this emerging field.

Keywords

Agrobacterium; nematodes; parasitic plants; plant grafting; rhizobia; vascular development; wounding

Published in

New Phytologist
2017, Volume: 213, number: 4, pages: 1611-1617
Publisher: WILEY

UKÄ Subject classification

Developmental Biology


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.14218

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/84633