Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
5.4
4.5
Journals
Plants
Special Issues
Molecular Plant-Fungal and Plant-Oomycete Interactions
share announcement

Molecular Plant-Fungal and Plant-Oomycete Interactions

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Protection and Biotic Interactions".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2022) | Viewed by 9082

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Manuel Ospina-Giraldo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Biology Department, Lafayette College, Easton, PA 18042, USA
Interests: plant–oomycete interactions; Phytophthora spp. pathogenicity; cell–wall degrading enzymes
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Production agriculture remains under siege: the persistence of fungal and oomycete diseases that can have devastating social and economic consequences continues to be a major threat to the worldwide food supply chain. Therefore, it is imperative that new methods providing durable and effective resistance to pathogens be identified in order to maintain food safety and availability. However, successful implementation of new approaches to combat plant disease requires elucidation and understanding of the mechanisms by which fungi and oomycetes infect plants and overcome the host immune system. Additionally, the potential defense pathways exhibited by plants against pathogen attack must be fully understood. Continuing advances in molecular biology, proteomics, functional genomics, and bioinformatics are revealing fascinating insights into the world of plant–host interactions, ushering in a new era in the field of fungal and oomycete pathology. For example, elicitors that trigger or contribute to defeating plant immunity have been described, and host genes that mediate susceptibility to pathogens have been identified. Similarly, plant secretome studies have uncovered the existence of novel secretory mechanisms independent of the canonical ER-Golgi pathway. This unusual secretion process, which involves small extracellular vesicles (EVs) that transport diverse messenger molecules, including RNA, DNA, lipids, and proteins, has been shown to mediate plant defense responses against fungal and oomycete pathogens. More recently, the roles of circular and long noncoding RNA (cRNA and lncRNA, respectively) in pathogenicity have been investigated. In particular, genome-wide identification studies have suggested a potential association of lncRNAs with effector gene transcription in Phytophthora sojae. These and other discoveries are now the foundation of a knowledge base that will continue to grow exponentially in the near future.

In this Special Issue, we are inviting authors to submit original research and review articles that explore the interface between plants and fungal or oomycete pathogens in depth. Potential topics include but are not limited to:

  • Fungal and oomycete pathogenicity:
    • Avirulence/Virulence
    • Biotrophy
    • Effector-triggered susceptibility
    • Pathogenicity factors
  • Plant defense and immunity
    • Plant defense mechanisms
    • Fungal and oomycete resistance genes
    • Induced mechanisms of plant resistance

Prof. Manuel Ospina-Giraldo
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • fungal and oomycete pathogenicity
  • plant defense and immunity
  • avirulence
  • biotrophy
  • effector-triggered susceptibility
  • pathogenicity factors
  • virulence

Published Papers (3 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

Jump to: Review

18 pages, 7154 KiB  
Article
Transcriptome Analysis of Potato Infected with the Necrotrophic Pathogen Alternaria solani
by Sophie M. Brouwer, Maja Brus-Szkalej, Ganapathi V. Saripella, Dong Liang, Erland Liljeroth and Laura J. Grenville-Briggs
Plants 2021, 10(10), 2212; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants10102212 - 18 Oct 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2806
Abstract
Potato early blight is caused by the necrotrophic fungus Alternaria solani and can result in yield losses of up to 50% if left uncontrolled. At present, the disease is controlled by chemical fungicides, yet rapid development of fungicide resistance renders current control strategies [...] Read more.
Potato early blight is caused by the necrotrophic fungus Alternaria solani and can result in yield losses of up to 50% if left uncontrolled. At present, the disease is controlled by chemical fungicides, yet rapid development of fungicide resistance renders current control strategies unsustainable. On top of that, a lack of understanding of potato defences and the quantitative nature of resistance mechanisms against early blight hinders the development of more sustainable control methods. Necrotrophic pathogens, compared to biotrophs, pose an extra challenge to the plant, since common defence strategies to biotic stresses such as the hypersensitive response and programmed cell death are often beneficial for necrotrophs. With the aim of unravelling plant responses to both the early infection stages (i.e., before necrosis), such as appressorium formation and penetration, as well as to later responses to the onset of necrosis, we present here a transcriptome analysis of potato interactions with A. solani from 1 h after inoculation when the conidia have just commenced germination, to 48 h post inoculation when multiple cell necrosis has begun. Potato transcripts with putative functions related to biotic stress tolerance and defence against pathogens were upregulated, including a putative Nudix hydrolase that may play a role in defence against oxidative stress. A. solani transcripts encoding putative pathogenicity factors, such as cell wall degrading enzymes and metabolic processes that may be important for infection. We therefore identified the differential expression of several potato and A. solani transcripts that present a group of valuable candidates for further studies into their roles in immunity or disease development. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Molecular Plant-Fungal and Plant-Oomycete Interactions)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

13 pages, 1192 KiB  
Article
Co-Infections by Fusarium circinatum and Phytophthora spp. on Pinus radiata: Complex Phenotypic and Molecular Interactions
by Francesco Aloi, Cristina Zamora-Ballesteros, Jorge Martín-García, Julio J. Diez and Santa Olga Cacciola
Plants 2021, 10(10), 1976; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants10101976 - 22 Sep 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2429
Abstract
This study investigated the complex phenotypic and genetic response of Monterey pine (Pinus radiata) seedlings to co-infections by F. circinatum, the causal agent of pine pitch canker disease, and the oomycetes Phytophthora xcambivora and P. parvispora. Monterey pine seedlings [...] Read more.
This study investigated the complex phenotypic and genetic response of Monterey pine (Pinus radiata) seedlings to co-infections by F. circinatum, the causal agent of pine pitch canker disease, and the oomycetes Phytophthora xcambivora and P. parvispora. Monterey pine seedlings were wound-inoculated with each single pathogen and with the combinations F. circinatum/P. xcambivora and F. circinatum/P. parvispora. Initially, seedlings inoculated only with F. circinatum showed less severe symptoms than seedlings co-inoculated or inoculated only with P. xcambivora or P. parvispora. However, 30 days post-inoculation (dpi), all inoculated seedlings, including those inoculated only with F. circinatum, showed severe symptoms with no significant differences among treatments. The transcriptomic profiles of three genes encoding pathogenesis-related proteins, i.e., chitinase (PR3), thaumatin-like protein (PR5), phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL), and the pyruvate decarboxylase (PDC)-encoding gene were analyzed at various time intervals after inoculation. In seedlings inoculated with single pathogens, F. circinatum stimulated the up-regulation of all genes, while between the two oomycetes, only P. xcambivora induced significant up-regulations. In seedlings co-inoculated with F. circinatum and P.xcambivora or P. parvispora none of the genes showed a significant over-expression 4 dpi. In contrast, at 11 dpi, significant up-regulation was observed for PR5 in the combination F. circinatum/P.xcambivora and PDC in the combination F. circinatum/P. parvispora, thus suggesting a possible synergism of multiple infections in triggering this plant defense mechanism. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Molecular Plant-Fungal and Plant-Oomycete Interactions)
►▼ Show Figures

Graphical abstract

Review

Jump to: Research

12 pages, 2284 KiB  
Review
How to Unravel the Key Functions of Cryptic Oomycete Elicitin Proteins and Their Role in Plant Disease
by Aayushree Kharel, Md Tohidul Islam, James Rookes and David Cahill
Plants 2021, 10(6), 1201; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants10061201 - 12 Jun 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2935
Abstract
Pathogens and plants are in a constant battle with one another, the result of which is either the restriction of pathogen growth via constitutive or induced plant defense responses or the pathogen colonization of plant cells and tissues that cause disease. Elicitins are [...] Read more.
Pathogens and plants are in a constant battle with one another, the result of which is either the restriction of pathogen growth via constitutive or induced plant defense responses or the pathogen colonization of plant cells and tissues that cause disease. Elicitins are a group of highly conserved proteins produced by certain oomycete species, and their sterol binding ability is recognized as an important feature in sterol–auxotrophic oomycetes. Elicitins also orchestrate other aspects of the interactions of oomycetes with their plant hosts. The function of elicitins as avirulence or virulence factors is controversial and is dependent on the host species, and despite several decades of research, the function of these proteins remains elusive. We summarize here our current understanding of elicitins as either defense-promoting or defense-suppressing agents and propose that more recent approaches such as the use of ‘omics’ and gene editing can be used to unravel the role of elicitins in host–pathogen interactions. A better understanding of the role of elicitins is required and deciphering their role in host–pathogen interactions will expand the strategies that can be adopted to improve disease resistance and reduce crop losses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Molecular Plant-Fungal and Plant-Oomycete Interactions)
►▼ Show Figures

Graphical abstract

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-3
Back to TopTop