The synthesis and accumulation of proteinase inhibitor I in excised tomato leaves can be induced with oligosaccharides obtained by fungal endo-alpha-1,4-polygalacturonase digestion of a pectic polysaccharide (M(r) 5000-10,000) isolated from tomato leaves. Active oligosaccharides were also released from isolated tomato leaf cell walls by endopolygalacturonases partially purified from tomato plan...

azospirillum is a well-studied genus of plant growth-promoting bacteria. phytohormone production by pgpr is considered as one of the effective factor to increase the tomato yield significantly. in order to study the effect of azospirillum inoculant on on growth characteristics and yields of tomato, three strain of azospirillum were isolated, identified, and purified from tehran suburb soils. to...

BACKGROUND In the U.S., tomatoes have become the most implicated vehicle for produce-associated Salmonellosis with 12 outbreaks since 1998. Although unconfirmed, trace backs suggest pre-harvest contamination with Salmonella enterica. Routes of tomato crop contamination by S. enterica in the absence of direct artificial inoculation have not been investigated. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Thi...

Efficient water resource management in relation to water use and crop yields is premised on the knowledge of plant resistance to water flow. However, such studies are limited and for most crops, the within plant resistance to water flow remains largely unknown. In this study, within plant resistance to water transport (hydraulic conductance) was monitored in tomato (Lycopersicum esculuntum) and...

Studying antagonistic coevolution between host plants and herbivores is particularly relevant for polyphagous species that can experience a great diversity of host plants with a large range of defenses. Here, we performed experimental evolution with the polyphagous spider mite Tetranychus urticae to detect how mites can exploit host plants. We thus compared on a same host the performance of rep...

Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 causes bacterial speck disease in tomato, and it elicits the hypersensitive response (HR) in non-host plants such as Nicotiana tabacum and Nicotiana benthamiana. The compatible and incompatible interactions of DC3000 with tomato and Nicotiana spp., respectively, result in plant cell death, but the HR cell death occurs more rapidly and is associated with ef...

Intercropping could alleviate soil-borne diseases, however, few studies focused on the immunity of the host plant induced by the interspecific interactions. To test whether or not intercropping could enhance the disease resistance of host plant, we investigated the effect of companion cropping with potato onion on tomato Verticillium wilt caused by Verticillium dahliae (V. dahliae). To investig...

By screening a tomato genomic library with a tomato U3 RNA probe, we detected a U3 genomic locus whose coding region was determined by primer extension (5' end) and direct RNA sequencing of purified U3 RNA from tomato (3' end). Tomato U3 RNA is 216 nucleotides long, contains all the four evolutionarily highly conserved sequence blocks (Boxes A to D), has at its 5' end a cap not precipitable wit...

Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) is an important tomato pest that also feeds on other host-plants from the Solanceae family. We studied the effect of two cultivated plants, tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum Mill.) and potato Solanum tuberosum L. on the development and populational parameters of T. absoluta related with host-plant suitability. Larval developmental time, pupal weight, mean fecundity and an ...

It has been proposed that cloned plant disease resistance genes could be transferred from resistant to susceptible plant species to control important crop plant diseases. The recently cloned N gene of tobacco confers resistance to the viral pathogen, tobacco mosaic virus. We generated transgenic tomato plants bearing the N gene and demonstrate that N confers a hypersensitive response and effect...