Tag: Biotic Interactions

The plant immune system is often described as having two parts, one which recognizes extracellular conserved microbial signals (pattern-triggered immunity: PTI) and one which is stimulated by the presence of specific microbial effectors (effector-triggered immunity: ETI).  Through a forward-genetic…

Pathogenic microbes translocate effector molecules into plant cells that subvert host immune responses and promote disease. In a recent article published in Cell Host & Microbe, Chen et al. (2017) describe an exciting new interaction between the Pseudomonas syringae effector AvrPtoB and its cognate…

Plant-to-plant communication allows plant neighbors to be warned by plant peers of stresses such as herbivory activity, sometimes by triggering priming processes. Systemin is an 18-amino acid hormone, firstly identified in tomato as a inducer of the wound response. Coppola et al. report the role of systemin…

Within the same species, plant responses to pathogens vary depending on the plant genotype. The correlation between phenotypic and genetic variation is a great resource for finding genes involved in plant-pathogen interactions.  By using a set of natural accessions of Medicago truncatula (HapMap population)…

Of the many classes of natural products produced by plants, terpenoids are the most structurally diverse, with well over 25,000 established compounds. In maize (Zea mays), terpene olefins are nearly ubiquitous components of induced volatile emissions following biotic stress. In contrast to our understanding…

Both plants and animals have a sophisticated immune system comprising receptors to detect pathogen-encoded epitopes or virulence molecules. These receptors are programmed to recognize pathogen ligands which are rapidly evolving over an evolutionary time. However, the structural basis of ligand perception…

Banana, the common breakfast component, is also a staple food in some regions of the world. More than 99% of the bananas exported world-wide are the clonally-propagated Cavendish variety, which have very little genetic variation and so are prone to disease outbreaks. Recent years have witnessed the emergence…

Wheat (Triticum aestivum) yields can be severely reduced by the obligate biotrophic pathogen Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (Pst).  Currently, approaches to manage this disease rely on cultivar resistance coupled with fungicide application. However, driven by a greater need for wheat production,…