Twenty years of research on cerato-platanin family proteins (CPPs) have led to some clear conclusions: CPPs are exclusively present in the fungal kingdom and possess an outstanding capacity to stimulate the immune system of plants. Recent discoveries have highlighted remarkable structural and functional similarities between CPPs and expansins, a class of non-enzymatic proteins found in both plants and microbes possessing loosening ability on the cell wall structure. Nevertheless, the determination of a biological role for CPPs in fungi is becoming a complicated puzzle to solve, since experimental data are often divergent and point to functional diversification. A general consensus appears however possible: CPPs from pathogenic and beneficial fungi may be considered as microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs) and likely play a dual role, exerting functions in the fungal cell wall and/or in plant colonization. In this review, which celebrates 20 y of research on CPPs, we trace the history of these proteins and highlight experimental evidence and still unsolved issues.

二十年来，关于陶瓷白蛋白家族蛋白（CPPs）的研究得出了一些明确的结论：CPP仅存在于真菌界，并具有出色的刺激植物免疫系统的能力。最近的发现凸显了CPP和expansins之间的惊人结构和功能相似性，expansins是在植物和微生物中都发现的一类非酶蛋白，在细胞壁结构上具有疏松能力。然而，确定CPPs在真菌中的生物学作用正成为解决一个复杂难题，因为实验数据通常存在分歧，并且指向功能多样化。但是，可能达成一个普遍共识：来自病原性和有益真菌的CPP可能被视为微生物相关的分子模式（MAMP），并且可能起双重作用，在真菌细胞壁和/或植物定殖中发挥功能。在这次庆祝CPPs研究20周年的综述中，我们追踪了这些蛋白质的历史，并重点介绍了实验证据和尚未解决的问题。