Natural Resistance Mechanisms of Plants to Viruses [Hardcover]

This book is a first attempt to link well-known plant resistance phenomena with emerging concepts in molecular biology. Resistance phenomena such as the local lesion response, induced resistance, green islands and resistance in various crop plants are linked with new information on gene-silencing mechanisms, gene silencing suppressors, movement proteins and plasmodesmatal gating, downstream signalling components, and more.

Over the course of evolution most plants have acquired the ability to defend themselves against most groups of pathogens, including the viruses. Many antiviral resistance phenomena have been known and studied for decades but, until recently, understanding of their underlying mechanisms has lagged behind. These phenomena include resistance to infection, resistance to virus translocation through the plant, recovery from infection and genetically defined resistance, together with the associated phenomena of the local lesion response, and induced, or acquired, resistance. The identification and cloning of plant resistance genes, characterization of downstream signaling components, and especially the explosion of data regarding gene-silencing mechanisms, has led to rapid progress in the investigation of natural resistance phenomena. Meanwhile, in plant virology there has been remarkable progress in the arenas of replication, movement proteins and plasmodesmatal gating, and in the discovery of gene silencing suppressors. Therefore, it seemed timely and appropriate to link older but still important data on the well known, classical resistance phenomena with the new information that has emerged during the last decade or so. We hope that this book will inspire further research in this area, as resistance presents the most economical and environmentally sound approach to control plant virus diseases. Future technologies that emerge from this research might include an improved ability to introduce resistance genes into virus-susceptiblelÓ=