Centrality of BAGs in Plant PCD, Stress Responses, and Host Defense
Nipuni Thanthrige1, Sachin Jain2, Sudipta Das Bhowmik1
1Centre for Tropical Crops and Biocommodities, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia.
Abstract:
Programmed cell death (PCD) is a genetically regulated process for the selective demise of unwanted and damaged cells. Although our understanding of plant PCD pathways has advanced significantly, doubts remain on the extent of conservation of animal apoptosis in plants. At least at the primary sequence level, plants do not encode the regulators of animal apoptosis. Structural analyses have enabled the identification of the B cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2)-associated athanogene (BAG) family of co-chaperones in plants. This discovery suggests that some aspects of animal PCD are conserved in plants, while the varied subcellular localization of plant BAGs indicates that they may have evolved distinct functions. Here we review plant BAG proteins, with an emphasis on their roles in the regulation of plant PCD.
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