Plants are constantly exposed to adverse environmental influences and attacks, for example from pest infestation. An international team of researchers led by Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) has now described a central part of the signal mechanism used by plants to respond to threats and thus initiate a defense response in unaffected parts of the plant. In the current edition of the journal Science Advances, they describe the role played by the protein MSL10, among others.