Exchanging missives and missiles: the roles of extracellular vesicles in plant-pathogen interactions

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are secreted by organisms from all forms of life. In the mammalian field they are intensively studied due to their importance in disease and potential for therapeutic use. However, there has been little research in plants and thus the paper by Regente et al. (2017) is a valuable addition to a small but hopefully growing body of data. The authors conducted proteomic analysis on purified sunflower EVs and demonstrated that they are enriched in defencerelated proteins. They found that fungal spores treated with fresh EV preparations are damaged and show reduced growth.