XVI International Botanical Congess

Programmed cell death (PCD)-like events have been reported in plants, although little is known of the mechanism at the molecular level. Bcl-xl, a suppressor of PCD in humans, was overproduced in tobacco plants using a strong promotor. In Bcl-xl expressor, cell death induced by UV-B irradiation, parraquat treatment and the N gene-dependent hypersensitive reaction (HR) upon tobacco mosaic virus infection was suppressed depending on the amount of Bcl-xl protein. Similar enhanced resistance to cell death was found in transgenic tobacco plants with the Ced-9 gene, ahomolog of the Bcl-xl gene from Caenorhabditis elegans, indicating that Bcl-xl and Ced-9 could function to inhibit cell death in plants.