Abstract
Lesion mimic mutants develop spontaneous cell death without pathogen attack. Some of the genes defined by these mutations may function as regulators of cell death. To understand the molecular mechanism of cell death in lesion mimic mutants, we isolated a lesion initiation 3 (len3) mutant. The lesions in len3 plants develop under short day and long day conditions. The len3 plants were smaller than wild-type plants and expressed cytological and biochemical markers that associated with disease resistance response. The len3 plants constitutively expressed the PR genes and showed enhanced resistance to virulent pathogens.
