A splicing checkpoint licenses resistosome assembly.

Abstract

In a recent issue of Science, Gao et al.1 discover a link between pattern-triggered immunity (PTI) initiated by plant cell surface receptors and effector-triggered immunity (ETI) initiated upon detection of pathogen effectors by intracellular nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) immune receptors. PTI activates alternative splicing that results in mRNAs for the potato NLR Rpi-vnt1.1 that lack a repressive N-terminal prodomain.