Abstract
No adaptive immune system equivalent to the highly effective vertebrate immune system has been detected in plants. Nevertheless, the very existence of plants in the presence of many pathogens bears witness to the presence of highly effective systems for defense against pathogen invasion and disease. One system is based on disease resistance genes, which allow plants to detect pathogen infection and mount effective defense responses. These genes were first identified in the early years of the 20th century and were cloned and characterized more than 90 years later in the last decade of the century (see refs. 1 and 2 for reviews). Intense studies of these genes are now taking place in the present century to discern how their products function and how this knowledge can be applied to problems of disease resistance and food security.
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Ellis, J.G., Jones, D.A. (2003). Plant Disease Resistance Genes. In: Ezekowitz, R.A.B., Hoffmann, J.A. (eds) Innate Immunity. Infectious Disease. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59259-320-0_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59259-320-0_2
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