Plant life cannot exist without programmed cell death (PCD). Both plant developmental processes and responses to environmental factors are modulated by highly controlled, localized cell death events (Kacprzyk et al., 2011; Locato and De Gara, 2018). A detailed understanding of these essential pathways and their regulation is therefore required, especially in the light of challenges imposed on plant health and productivity by an increasingly volatile climate

Bouteau, Francois

Gunawardena, Arunika H. L. A. N.

Kacprzyk, Joanna

McCabe, Paul F.

Research Repository UCD

Title Editorial: Plant Programmed Cell Death RevisitedAuthors(s) Kacprzyk, Joanna, Gunawardena, Arunika H. L. A. N., Bouteau, Francois, McCabe, Paul F.Publication date 2021-03-25Publication information Kacprzyk, Joanna, Arunika H. L. A. N. Gunawardena, Francois Bouteau, and Paul F. McCabe. “Editorial: Plant Programmed Cell Death Revisited” 12 (March 25, 2021).Publisher Frontiers MediaItem record/more informationhttp://hdl.handle.net/10197/27055Publisher's version (DOI) 10.3389/fpls.2021.672465Downloaded 2025-01-17 23:35:54The UCD community has made this article openly available. Please share how this accessbenefits you. Your story matters! (@ucd_oa)© Some rights reserved. For more informationEDITORIALpublished: 25 March 2021doi: 10.3389/fpls.2021.672465Frontiers in Plant Science | www.frontiersin.org 1 March 2021 | Volume 12 | Article 672465Edited and reviewed by:Abidur Rahman,Iwate University, Japan*Correspondence:Joanna Kacprzykjoanna.kacprzyk@ucd.ieSpecialty section:This article was submitted toPlant Cell Biology,a section of the journalFrontiers in Plant ScienceReceived: 25 February 2021Accepted: 02 March 2021Published: 25 March 2021Citation:Kacprzyk J, Gunawardena AHLAN,Bouteau F and McCabe PF (2021)Editorial: Plant Programmed CellDeath Revisited.Front. Plant Sci. 12:672465.doi: 10.3389/fpls.2021.672465Editorial: Plant Programmed CellDeath RevisitedJoanna Kacprzyk 1*, Arunika H. L. A. N. Gunawardena 2, Francois Bouteau 3 andPaul F. McCabe 11 School of Biology and Environmental Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, 2 Biology Department, DalhousieUniversity, Halifax, NS, Canada, 3 Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Énergies de Demain, Université de Paris, Paris, FranceKeywords: plant programmed cell death, abiotic stress, plant development, cell death proteases, transcriptionfactorsEditorial on the Research TopicPlant Programmed Cell Death RevisitedPlant life cannot exist without programmed cell death (PCD). Both plant developmental processesand responses to environmental factors are modulated by highly controlled, localized cell deathevents (Kacprzyk et al., 2011; Locato and De Gara, 2018). A detailed understanding of theseessential pathways and their regulation is therefore required, especially in the light of challengesimposed on plant health and productivity by an increasingly volatile climate. Reassuringly, thisResearch Topic gathers contributions underscoring that the plant PCD research is coming out ofage and indeed holds the potential to drive the development of novel stress tolerant crop cultivars.The two review articles of this Topic discuss critical aspects of plant cell death pathway: itstranscriptional control (Burke et al.) and the proteases involved in execution of cell death process(Balakireva and Zamyatnin). Burke et al. highlights the role of transcription factors (TFs) inthe regulation of plant PCD occurring in response to abiotic and biotic environmental triggers,complementing a recent publication by Cubría-Radío and Nowack (2019), who focused on TFsinvolvement during developmental PCD. Burke et al. surveyed TFs from NAC, ERF and WKRYfamilies that are involved in life-death decisions in response to environmental perturbations,including those modulating mitochondrial stress signaling. This work provides a starting pointfor integrative analysis of gene regulatory networks involved in PCD induced by abiotic and bioticstresses, and further elucidation of core transcriptional mechanisms driving the cell death processesin plants. Following PCD activation, proteolytic cascades are important elements of cell deathpathways in animals, responsible for signal transduction (initiation caspases) and degradation ofcellular components (effector caspases) (Crawford and Wells, 2011; Galluzzi et al., 2018). Whilecanonical caspases are absent in plant genomes, numerous proteases have been shown to play a rolein plant PCD, often displaying caspase-like specificity (Salvesen et al., 2016). In this Research Topic,Balakireva and Zamyatnin compare the key characteristics of protease function during cell deathin animal and plant cells. The authors propose that proteolytic death-inducing cascades also existin plant cells, although their participants are different in origin, but similar in function, to thosedescribed in animals (see Figure 1 in Balakireva and Zamyatnin). We expect that the application ofincreasingly accessible proteomics-based approaches will test this hypothesis in the near future.TheOriginal Research Articles from this topic uncover different aspects of both developmentallyregulated and environmentally induced PCD modulation.Dauphinee et al. used lace plant leaf morphogenesis, a unique model system for studyingdevelopmentally regulated PCD, to study the cross talk between cell death and autophagy.Authors demonstrate through the chemical modulation of autophagy, that the process doesKacprzyk et al. Editorial: Plant Programmed Cell Death Revisitednot have a direct role in the induction of developmental PCDduring lace plant leaf morphogenesis and primarily contributesto cell survival. These findings are an important contribution tothe ongoing debate on the role of autophagy in plant cell death(Bozhkov, 2018).The Earth’s changing climate is leading to increased frequencyof extreme weather events that may lead to severe crop damage.Thankfully, plants have developed diverse strategies to dealwith environmental stresses, and PCD is part of this defenserepertoire (Kacprzyk et al., 2011; Locato and De Gara, 2018).In this Research Topic, Pegg et al. provide novel insights intoPCD-mediated formation of aerenchyma, a tissue comprisingempty spaces that facilitates the gas exchange and consequentlya key morphological adaptation for waterlogging tolerance(Mustroph, 2018). The study characterized the flooding-inducedaerenchyma formation patterns and the associated cell wallcarbohydrate modifications within the vascular stele of threeFabacea species (pea, chickpea, and runner bean). The authorsidentified a localized (and likely carefully controlled) pectinde-methyl-esterification as a putative mechanism paving the wayfor enzymatic degradation of cell walls and cell death in theaerenchyma forming tissues. Efforts to improve the floodingtolerance in legumes are likely to significantly benefit from thiswork. The theme of PCD in plant stress tolerance is continuedby Chua et al. who explored the effect of the cyanobacteriaNostoc muscorum exometabolites on the heat-induced PCD inArabidopsis root hairs. In their elegantly designed study, theauthors demonstrate the suppression of stress-induced plantPCD due to uptake of cyanobacteria-derived proline. Thefindings suggest a novel mechanism for increased plant stresstolerance when Nostoc is used as a biofertilizer, and maytherefore stimulate development of more effective strategieswhere Nostoc strains with increased proline secretion aregenerated. The rates of PCD in root hairs were also studied inthis Research Topic as a potential marker for the variety stresstolerance (Chua et al.). These authors used the root hair assay(Kacprzyk et al., 2014) to score the PCD rates in barley and wheatseedlings and estimate their basal-, induced- and cross-stresstolerance. The stressed-induced PCD responses were an effectivebiomarker for preliminary identification of stress tolerant cerealvarieties prior to large scale field testing, making the study highlyrelevant from an agricultural point of view.Collectively, the contributions from the Research Topicemphasize the progress in the field of PCD research and itspotential to deliver solutions from the laboratory to the farm.They also highlight the still unanswered questions about thedeath of plant cell—and hence the exciting opportunities forfurther research!AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONSAll authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectualcontribution to the work, and approved it for publication.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSWe thank the Frontiers editorial team for their help in makingthis Research Topic possible.REFERENCESBozhkov, P. V. (2018). Plant autophagy: mechanisms and functions. J. Exp. Bot. 69,1281–1285. doi: 10.1093/jxb/ery070Crawford, E. D., and Wells, J. A. (2011). Caspase substratesand cellular remodeling. Annu. Rev. Biochem. 80, 1055–1087.doi: 10.1146/annurev-biochem-061809-121639Cubría-Radío, M., and Nowack, M. K. (2019). Transcriptional networksorchestrating programmed cell death during plant development.Curr. Top. Dev. Biol. 131, 161–184. doi: 10.1016/bs.ctdb.2018.10.006Galluzzi, L., Vitale, I., Aaronson, S. A., Abrams, J. M., Adam, D., Agostinis, P.,et al. (2018). Molecular mechanisms of cell death: recommendations of theNomenclature Committee on Cell Death 2018. Cell Death Differ. 25, 486–541.doi: 10.1038/s41418-017-0012-4Kacprzyk, J., Daly, C. T., and McCabe, P. F. (2011). “Chapter 4–the botanicaldance of death: programmed cell death in plants,” in Advances inBotanical Research, Vol. 60, eds J. C. Kader and M. Delseny (Burlington,VT: Academic Press), 169–261. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-385851-1.00004-4Kacprzyk, J., Devine, A., and McCabe, P. F. (2014). The root hair assay facilitatesthe use of genetic and pharmacological tools in order to dissect multiplesignalling pathways that lead to programmed cell death. PLoS ONE 9:e94898.doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0094898Locato, V., and De Gara, L. (Eds.). (2018). “Programmed cell death in plants: anoverview,” in Plant Programmed Cell Death: Methods and Protocols (New York,NY: Springer New York), 1–8. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-7668-3_1Mustroph, A. (2018). Improving Flooding Tolerance of Crop Plants. Agronomy, 8,160. doi: 10.3390/agronomy8090160Salvesen, G. S., Hempel, A., and Coll, N. S. (2016). Protease signalingin animal and plant-regulated cell death. FEBS J. 283, 2577–2598.doi: 10.1111/febs.13616Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that the research was conducted in theabsence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as apotential conflict of interest.Copyright © 2021 Kacprzyk, Gunawardena, Bouteau and McCabe. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionLicense (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted,provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that theoriginal publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academicpractice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not complywith these terms.Frontiers in Plant Science | www.frontiersin.org 2 March 2021 | Volume 12 | Article 672465

Editorial: Plant Programmed Cell Death Revisited

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