Only in dying, life: programmed cell death during plant development

A conserved core of PCD indicator genes discriminates developmentally and environmentally induced programmed cell death in plants

“…To date, despite the undisputed importance of the diverse forms of plant PCD for development and for environmental interactions (Wu et al, 2014; Petrov Van Hautegem et al, 2015), still only little is known about the molecular regulation of these processes. During the plant life cycle, PCD is induced at numerous occasions, but it is unclear whether there are common mechanisms involved in controlling different PCD types.…”

“…Cells are also dying in the central endosperm and in senescing petals, but much less is known about the nature of the cell death in these tissues (for review, see Van Hautegem et al, 2015). We exploited a tonoplast integrity marker (ToIM; Fendrych et al, 2014) to investigate vacuolar collapse, a hallmark of vacuolar PCD .…”

“…In animals and plants, PCD is involved in many aspects of development, sculpting structures or deleting unwanted tissues (Fuchs and Steller, 2011;Van Hautegem et al, 2015). Over the last two decades, intensive investigations have revealed mechanisms controlling different forms of animal PCD; the most prominent among them is apoptotic PCD (Green, 2011).…”

Mechanical stress mediated by both endosperm softening and embryo growth underlies endosperm elimination in Arabidopsis seeds

“…The term developmental programmed cell death (dPCD) has been used to describe such processes (Olvera-Carrillo et al, 2015). Although in animals, the molecular control of dPCD pathways is well characterised and relatively conserved (recently reviewed by Suzanne and Steller, 2013), almost every reported instance of plant dPCD seems to involve unique molecular players, with the triggers of plant dPCD being particularly diverse (recently reviewed by Van Hautegem et al, 2015). Interestingly, however, a conserved set of indicator genes expressed prior to multiple plant dPCD processes has recently been defined (Olvera-Carrillo et al, 2015).…”

AtPDCD5 plays a role during dark-senescence in Arabidopsis

“…In animals and plants, PCD is involved in different aspects of development, shaping structures or eliminating unwanted tissues. 1,2 In plants, PCD occurs as an essential part of development but also as a reaction to biotic and abiotic environmental challenges. 3 During stress conditions, abiotic stresses such as heat, salt, UV radiation or extended darkness; or biotic stresses such as pathogen attacks can lead to cell death.…”