Being sessile in their natural environment, plants are continuously forced to defend themselves against a plethora of stresses. Therefore, they have to be able to perceive pathogens, ultimately leading to a triggering of the activation of defense responses.

Perception of pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) or microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs), is the first layer of plant innate immunity and is referred to as PAMP-triggered immunity (PTI).

An additional layer of defense is facilitated by the ability of plants to being primed. Here, elicitors stemming from pathogens, beneficial microorganisms, or in the form of various natural and synthetic compounds sensitize the plant cells to react more rapidly or/and accurately to a future challenging infection. The majority of such exogenous elicitors of plant defense responses are nonspecific and differ widely in their chemical nature including proteins, glycoproteins, oligosaccharides, and lipids.

Since elicitors might protect plants from diseases by triggering their immune system, they could be encouraging alternatives to pesticides, which can have a negative effect on the environment.

In this Research Topic, we invite the scientific community to contribute high-quality Original Research articles and review articles on, but not exclusively:
• the impact of pathogen-derived elicitors (exogenous elicitor)
• plant-derived elicitors (endogenous elicitor)
• synthetic elicitors on plant immunity.

Please note:
Studies falling into the categories below will not be considered for review, unless they are expanded and provide functional or mechanistic insights into the biological system or process being studied:

i) Descriptive collection of transcripts, proteins or metabolites, including comparative sets as a result of different conditions or treatments;
ii) Descriptive studies that define gene families using basic phylogenetics and the assignment of cursory functional attributions (e.g. expression profiles, hormone or metabolites levels, promoter analysis, informatic parameters).

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Frontiers in Plant Science

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