From Antifungal Hydrolases to Modern Plant Immunity: Revisiting the Legacy of Boller

Clicks: 18
ID: 327443
2026
Free PDF
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Emerging

Ranked #407 of 653 articles by views in Plant physiology and biochemistry : PPB

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 653 in total.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Sign in to mint
Abstract
The 1988 papers by Mauch, Mauch-Mani, Hadwiger and Boller on pea antifungal hydrolases captured a simple but powerful idea: plants can attack pathogens by directly targeting the structural polymers that hold their cell walls together. At that time, chitinases and β-1,3-glucanases were known to accumulate after infection, wounding and ethylene treatment, but whether these proteins actually restricted fungal growth remained unclear. By resolving distinct hydrolase isoforms and showing that inducible chitinase and β-1,3-glucanase act synergistically to inhibit fungal growth and lyse hyphal tips, these studies transformed infection-induced enzyme accumulation into a mechanistic model of antifungal activity. We now recognize that fungal cell wall hydrolysis also releases glycan fragments that act as immune signals and are perceived by plant immune receptors, linking pathogen damage to immune activation in plants. At the same time, pathogens have evolved counterstrategies to mask, modify or protect these cell wall components, limiting both enzymatic access and immune detection. Thus, the Boller studies anticipated a central theme of modern molecular plant pathology: plant-pathogen interactions are dynamic interfaces where host enzymes, pathogen wall fragments, immune receptors and pathogen counterstrategies converge.
Reference Key
openalex_W7207601668 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Ritu Singh, Ana M. Laxalt
Are you one of these authors? Claim your profile
Journal Plant physiology and biochemistry : PPB
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/plphys/kiag655
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/plphys/kiag655
Keywords Keywords not found

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.