PTI and ETI: convergent pathways with diverse elicitors

Plants rely on PAMP-triggered immunity (PTI) and effector-triggered immunity (ETI) to detect invading pathogens and subsequently activate defense mechanisms. Recently, four Nature papers (Yuan et al., Ngou et al., Pruitt et al., and Tian et al.)demonstrated that important components in PTI and ETI are required for both PTI and ETI, and PTI and ETI potentiate each other to achieve stronger plant defenses.