Molecular Mechanisms Involved in Bacterial Speck Disease Resistance of Tomato

Kim, Young Jin; Martin, Gregory B.

doi:2004.20.1.7

Plant Pathol J > Volume 20(1); 2004 > Article

The Plant Pathology Journal 2004;20(1):7-12.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5423/PPJ.2004.20.1.007 Published online March 31, 2004.

Molecular Mechanisms Involved in Bacterial Speck Disease Resistance of Tomato

Young Jin Kim, Gregory B. Martin

Abstract

An important recent advance in the field of plantmicrobe interactions has been the cloning of genes that confer resistance to specific viruses, bacteria, fungi or insects. Disease resistance (R) genes encode proteins with predicted structural motifs consistent with them having roles in signal recognition and transduction. Plant disease resistance is the result of an innate host defense mechanism, which relies on the ability of plant to recognize pathogen invasion and efficiently mount defense responses. In tomato, resistance to the pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato is mediated by the specific recognition between the tomato serine/threonine kinase Pto and bacterial protein AvrPto or AvrPtoB. This recognition event initiates signaling events that lead to defense responses including an oxidative burst, the hypersensitive response (HR), and expression of pathogenesis-related genes.

Key Words: Pto kinase, AvrPto, AvrPtoB, disease resistance, signal transduction, recognition specificity, PR genes