Potato pectin falls to Phytophthora infestans is a plant oomycete pathogen that drove the potato famines of 1800s and continues afflict fields today. The polysaccharide makes up about third cell wall in potatoes. Sabbadin et al . identified family lytic monooxygenases (LMPOs) cleave are upregulated P. during infection. Silencing relevant LMPO gene successfully inhibited infections. These findin...

The plant kingdom represents a prominent biodiversity island for microbes that associate with the below- or aboveground organs of vegetal species. Both the root and the leaf represent interfaces where dynamic biological interactions influence plant life. Beside well-studied communication strategies based on soluble compounds and protein effectors, bacteria were recently shown to interact both w...

A large-scale screen for genes induced during sexual development was performed in the heterothallic oomycete Phytophthora infestans, the potato blight agent. Of 15,644 unigenes on an Affymetrix chip, 87 were induced >10-fold during mating, with 28 induced >100-fold. This was validated in independent matings using RNA blots and RT-PCR. Only 44 genes resembled sequences in GenBank. These encoded ...

Microbial lifeforms associated with land plants represent a rich source for crop growth- and health-promoting microorganisms and biocontrol agents. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced by the plant microbiota have been demonstrated to elicit plant defenses and inhibit the growth and development of numerous plant pathogens. Therefore, these molecules are prospective alternatives to synthet...

An empirical model of flight initiation coupled with data from a longitudinal study predicted that the flight dispersal of Triatoma infestans from peridomestic sites was more likely to occur in late summer. To partially test this prediction, we operated 11-12 black light traps from 1945 to 2200 hours in March 2003 in two villages in northern Argentina. All peridomestic sites around the light tr...

Lipoxygenase (LOX) activity has been identified consistently during pathogen-induced defense responses. Here we report the involvement of a specific leaf LOX gene of potato (Solanum tuberosum), designated POTLX-3 (GenBank/EMBL accession no. U60202), in defense responses against pathogens. The sequence of POTLX-3 does not match any other LOX genes of potato and has the greatest match to a tobacc...

An emerging area in plant research focuses on antagonism between regulatory systems governing growth and immunity. Such cross talk represents a point of vulnerability for pathogens to exploit. AVR2, an RXLR effector secreted by the potato blight pathogen Phytophthora infestans, interacts with potato BSL1, a putative phosphatase implicated in growth-promoting brassinosteroid (BR) hormone signali...

ABSTRACT The central highlands of Mexico should provide an optimal testing ground for evaluating the potential threat of selection for resistance to fungicides in the population of Phytophthora infestans. We evaluated the hypotheses that exposure to the fungicides azoxystrobin, cymoxanil, dimethomorph, fluazinam, mancozeb, metalaxyl, and propamocarb hydrochloride would lead to (i) a shift in th...

In most eukaryotic organisms, translation elongation requires two highly conserved elongation factors eEF1A and eEF2. Fungal systems are unique in requiring a third factor, the eukaryotic Elongation Factor 3 (eEF3). For decades, eEF3, a ribosome-dependent ATPase, was considered "fungal-specific", however, recent bioinformatics analysis indicates it may be more widely distributed among other uni...