An Overview of Programmed Cell Death Research: From Canonical to Emerging Model Species -- Mitochondrion and Chloroplast Regulation of Plant Programmed Cell Death -- Life Beyond Death: the Formation of Xylem Sap Conduits -- Programmed Cell Death in Plant Immunity: Cellular Reorganization, Signaling and Cell Cycle Dependence in Cultured Cells as a Model System -- Vascular Aerenchyma and PCD -- Out for a Walk Along the Secretory Pathway During Programmed Cell Death -- Nuclear Dismantling Events: Crucial Steps During the Execution of Plant Programmed Cell Death -- Programmed Cell Death Regulation by Plant Proteases with Caspase-Like Activity -- Senescence-Associated Programmed Cell Death -- The Hypersensitive Response in PAMP- and Effector-Triggered Immune Responses -- To Live or Die: Auophagy in Plants.

This book provides a thorough analysis of the process known as prgrammed cell death (PCD). This process, while utterly destructive on a cellular level, plays an indispensable role in plant development and defense. Programmed cell death is a crucial cellular event that occurs throughout a plant’s life cycle from the death of the embryonic suspensor to leaf and floral organ senescence. The text contains eleven chapters in total, covering the most recent research findings in the area of plant PCD at the molecular, biochemical, and cellular levels.  This book serves as an invaluable guide for graduate students, upper-level undergraduate students, and researchers that are entering the field of cell death research for the first time. Established researchers will also find this work indispensable as an up-to-date review of PCD topics.