Autophagy in plant immunity

Abstract

The highly conserved catabolic process of autophagy delivers unwanted proteins or damaged organelles to vacuoles for degradation and recycling. This is essential for the regulation of cellular homeostasis, stress adaptation, and programmed cell death in eukaryotes. In particular, emerging evidence indicates that autophagy plays a multifunctional regulatory role in plant innate immunity during plant–pathogen interactions. In this review, we highlight existing knowledge regarding the involvement of autophagy in plant immunity, mechanisms functioning in the induction of autophagy upon pathogen infection, and possible directions for future research.