Deciphering the role of plant plasma membrane lipids in response to invasion patterns: how biology and biophysics could help?

Plants have to constantly face pathogen attacks. To cope with diseases, they have to detect as early as possible the invader via the sensing of conserved motifs called invasion patterns (IPs). The first step of perception occurs at the plasma membrane. While many IPs are perceived by specific proteinaceous immune receptors, several studies highlighted the influence of lipid composition and dynamics of the plasma membrane in the sensing of IPs. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge on how some microbial IPs could interact with the lipids of the plasma membrane leading to a plant immune response. Depending on the IP, different mechanisms are involved. This review will outline the potential of combining biological with biophysical approaches to decipher how plasma membrane lipids are involved in the perception of microbial IPs.