The conformational and subcellular compartmental dance of plant NLRs during viral recognition and defense signaling

Plant innate immune response against viruses utilizes intracellular Nucleotide Binding domain Leucine Rich Repeat (NLR) class of receptors. NLRs recognize different viral proteins termed elicitors and initiate diverse signaling processes that induce programmed cell death (PCD) in infected cells and restrict virus spread. In this review we describe the recent advances made in the study of plant NLRs that detect viruses. We describe some of the physical and functional interactions these NLRs undertake. We elaborate on the intra-molecular and homotypic association of NLRs that function in self-regulation and activation. Nuclear role for some viral NLRs is discussed as well as the emerging importance of the RNAi pathway in regulating the NLR family.