The Plant Ubiquitin-Proteasome System as a Target for Microbial Manipulation

The plant immune system perceives pathogens to trigger defense responses. In turn, pathogens secrete effector molecules to subvert these defense responses. The initiation and maintenance of defense responses involve not only de novo synthesis of regulatory proteins and enzymes but also their regulated degradation. The latter is achieved through protein degradation pathways such as the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS). The UPS regulates all stages of immunity, from the perception of the pathogen to the execution of the response, and, therefore, constitutes an ideal candidate for microbial manipulation of the host. Pathogen effector molecules interfere with the plant UPS through several mechanisms. This includes hijacking general UPS functions or perturbing its ability to degrade specific targets. In this review, we describe how the UPS regulates different immunity-related processes and how pathogens subvert this to promote disease.