Genes Involved in Microbeplant Interactions

Many fungi and bacteria that associate with plants are potentially harmful and can cause disease, while others enter into mutually beneficial sym­ bioses. Co-evolution of plants with pathogenic and symbiotic microbes has lead to refined mechanisms of reciprocal recognition, defense and counter­ defense. Genes in both partners determine and regulate these mechanisms.

Research on the interaction between plants and microbes has attracted considerable attention in recent years. The use of modem genetic techniques has now made possible a detailed analysis both of plant and of microbial genes involved in phytopathogenic and beneficial interactions. At the biochemical level, signal molecules and their receptors, either of plant or of microbial origins, have been detected which act in signal transduction pathways or as co-regulators of gene expression.

Several fundamental advances were announced at the Seventh International Symposium on Molecular Plant–Microbe Interactions held in Edinburgh in 1994.