Salicylic Acid and its Function in Plant Immunity

The small phenolic compound salicylic acid （SA） plays an important regulatory role in multiple physiological processes including plant im- mune response. Significant progress has been made during the past two decades in understanding the SA-mediated defense signaling network. Characterization of a number of genes functioning in SA biosynthesis, conjugation, accumulation, signaling, and crosstalk with other hormones such as jasmonic acid, ethylene, abscisic acid, auxin, gibberellic acid, cytokinin, brassinosteroid, and peptide hormones has sketched the finely tuned immune response network. Full understanding of the mech- anism of plant immunity will need to take advantage of fast developing genomics tools and bioinformatics techniques. However, elucidating genetic components involved in these pathways by conventional ge- netics, biochemistry, and molecular biology approaches will continue to be a major task of the community. High-throughput method for SA quantification holds the potential for isolating additional mutants related to SA-mediated defense signaling.