Plants perceive and respond to herbivore insect eggs. Upon egg deposition on leaves, a strong hypersensitive response (HR)-like cell death can be activated leading desiccation and/or dropping. In Brassica spp., including many crops, the HR-like mechanism against eggs of cabbage white butterflies ( Pieris spp.) is poorly understood. Using two species, crop B. rapa its wild relative nigra , we st...

Pieris rapae granulovirus (PrGV) can infect and kill larvae of Pieris rapae, a worldwide and important pest of mustard family crops. The PrGV genome consists of 108,592 bp, is AT rich (66.8%), and is most structurally and organizationally similar to the Choristoneura occidentalis granulovirus genome. Of the predicted 120 open reading frames (ORFs), 32 genes specifically occurred in GVs, includi...

We have analysed the role of tryptophan-derived secondary metabolites in disease resistance of Arabidopsis to the oomycete pathogen Phytophthora brassicae. Transcript analysis revealed that genes encoding enzymes involved in tryptophan, camalexin and indole glucosinolate (iGS) biosynthesis are coordinately induced in response to P. brassicae. However, a deficiency in either camalexin or iGS acc...

Plants are part of biodiverse communities and frequently suffer from attack by multiple herbivorous insects. Plant responses to these herbivores are specific for insect feeding guilds: aphids and caterpillars induce different plant phenotypes. Moreover, plants respond differentially to single or dual herbivory, which may cascade into a chain of interactions in terms of resistance to other commu...

Clubroot disease is a serious threat to cruciferous plants worldwide, especially to oilseed rape. However, knowledge on pathogenic molecular mechanisms and host interaction is limited. We presume that the recognition between Arabidopsis thaliana and Plasmodiophora brassicae occurs at the early stage of infection and within a relatively short period. In this study, we demonstrated changes on gen...

It is considered that the mate-locating behaviors of ectothermic insects are constrained by the ambient thermal conditions, since the flight ability depends on the body temperature. However, since ecological factors also influence the mating behaviors, the flight ability would not necessarily determine the time schedule of male mate-locating flight. To reveal how the ambient thermal conditions ...

Leptosphaeria maculans 'brassicae' is a damaging fungal pathogen of canola (Brassica napus), causing lesions on cotyledons and leaves, and cankers on the lower stem. A related species, L. biglobosa 'canadensis', colonises cotyledons but causes few stem cankers. We describe the complement of genes encoding carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZys) and peptidases of these fungi, as well as of four rela...

Clubroot disease caused by an obligate biotroph, Plasmodiophora brassicae Woronin, causes damage to cruciferous vegetables. In the breeding of Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa L. ssp. pekinens is) in Japan, European turnips were fbund to be a source ofclubroot-resistance (CR) genes (Yoshikawa 1981). To date, more than 50 CR Fi cultivars have been bred. However, the breakdown ofthe clubroot resist...