"Initiation of runaway cell death in an Arabidopsis mutant by extracellular superoxide."
Science 273, 1853-1856.
Jabs, T, RA Dietrich and JL Dangl
Summary
"Reactive oxygen intermediates (ROIs) regulate apoptosis during normal development and disease in animals. ROIs are also implicated in hypersensitive resistance responses of plants against pathogens. Arabidopsis lsd1 mutants exhibited impaired control of cell death in the absences of pathogen and could not control the spread of cell death once it was initiated. Superoxide was necessary and sufficient to initiate lesion formation; it accumulated before the onset of cell death and subsequently in live cells adjacent to spreading lsd1 lesions. Thus runaway cell death seen in lsd1 plants reflected abnormal accumulation of superoxide and lack of responsiveness to signals derived from it."