| "A long view from a high plateau" |
| Nature 401, 543-544. |
| Summary "Scientific endeavor tends towards a punctuated equilibrium - slow periods during which systems and tools are developed, followed by bursts of new knowledge. For the molecular understanding of plant-pathogen interactions there have been three recent explosions. The first was the isolation of plant disease-resistance (R) genes (Fig. 1); second was the ability to isolate mutants in 'model' plants such as Arabidopsis thaliana and tomato; and third was the (initially improbable) finding that bacterial pathogens of both plants and animals rely on a conserved delivery system to ferry the effectors of disease into their hosts. Experiments and achievements deriving from these three breakthroughs were reported at two meetings earlier this year." |