A novel strategy for plant protection: Induced resistance

Most plant protection methods currently applied use toxic chemicals noxious to the environment for pathogen and pest control. Induced resistance exploiting natural defense machinery of plants could be proposed as an alternative, non-conventional and ecologically-friendly approach for plant protection. Its introduction into agricultural practice could minimize the scope of chemical control, thus contributing to the development of sustainable agriculture. Induced resistance can be defined as an increased expression of natural defence mechanisms of plants against various type of pathogens, provoked by a range of factors: pathogens causing hypersensitive necrotic reaction; avirulent or attenuated pathogenic strains; elicitors of pathogenic origin (glucans, proteins, lipids, etc.); abiotic elicitors, including synthetic harmless chemical products, such as 2,6-dichloroisonicotinic acid (INA), b-aminobutyric acid (BABA), benzothiadiazole (BTH), etc. Induced resistance, being based on the expression of latent genetic information present in plants, is not underlied by genome alterations (mutations, introgression of foreign genetic material), this enhancing its biological safety. Molecular bases of induced resistance, involving receptor-elicitor interactions, signal transducing-pathways and SAR gene expression, are discussed.