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Abstract

The Trojan Horse was a giant wooden statue constructed by the Greeks during the Trojan War to conceal elite soldiers inside. By pretending to retreat and offering the statue to the city of Troy, the Greeks ultimately achieved a decisive victory. Chen et al. (pages 2118–2134) demonstrated that the rice phytocytokine IMMUNE RESPONSE PEPTIDE 1 (IRP1) and its derived peptides resemble hidden soldiers, hiding in ambush inside pest frass (the “Trojan Horse”) during pest feeding, and finally activating rice plant defenses. This work provides a unique example of how a plant senses the presence of herbivores by perceiving its own phytocytokines in herbivore frass and then launching its defenses.