Waking up for defense! Melatonin as a regulator of stomatal immunity in plants

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Abstract
Melatonin is a tryptophan-derived compound discovered in the late 1950s as a molecule produced by the pineal gland of most vertebrates. Melatonin gained notoriety in the 1970s when it was demonstrated that its production increased in humans during the night in a rhythmic fashion associated with sleep synchronization ( Xie et al., 2017). Melatonin is a ubiquitous molecule produced by bacteria, fungi, plants, and animals. In plants, melatonin regulates a wide range of processes, such as seed germination, root and shoot growth, and production of secondary metabolites, and is involved in circadian cycle regulation ( Arnao and Hernández-Ruiz, 2019). The recent identification of a melatonin receptor named PHYTOMELATONIN RECEPTOR1 (AtPMTR1) in the plant model Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) demonstrated that melatonin also governs an AtPMTR1-dependent mechanism of stomatal closure ( Wei et al., 2018). As stomatal closure is a well-known process utilized by plants to restrain the invasion of pathogens, usually referred to as stomatal immunity ( Melotto et al., 2006), melatonin is now gaining attention for its capacity to mediate responses to biotic stress in plants ( Moustafa-Farag et al., 2020). Unfortunately, the underlying molecular mechanisms of melatonin regulation of plant immunity remain largely unknown.

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