Oxidative stress and oxylipins in plant-fungus interaction

Abstract

Considering the huge quantity of studies related to the implication of oxidative stress in the biological processes, we could say that reactive oxygen species (ROS) are actually everywhere around us and play different important roles in the life of all organisms. Reactive species can affect cell physiology both in a quantitative and in a qualitative manner, that is, not only the amount of ROS accumulated in the cell, but also the kind of ROS produced affect cell biology. Indeed, ROS are formed at the plant-fungus interface during their interaction and they influence both the plant and the pathogen by altering the respective metabolism. Here we hypothesise that peroxisomes play an important role in both challenging organisms in modulating the ROS signal and transform it in oxylipins words, e.g. jasmonates for plants and hormone-like substances (i.e. psi factors) for fungi. Plant secretes oxylipins to alter fungal metabolism and differentiation, and the fungus use these lipid signals for switching secondary metabolism on. On the other hand, fungi are able to secrete Mn-lipoxygenase and Jasmonates into the plant cell for driving the host metabolism toward their own parasitic needs.