DL-beta-aminobutyric acid (BABA) is a non-protein amino acid that is an effective inducer of resistance against a variety of plant pathogens. However, examples of BABA-induced resistance against insect herbivores have not been reported. We applied BABA as a soil drench to legumes and monitored its effects on the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum (Harris). On tic bean (Vicia faba var. minor), BABA i...

Expression of the Helicobacter pylori blood group antigen binding adhesin A (BabA) is more common in strains isolated from patients with peptic ulcer disease or gastric cancer, rather than asymptomatic colonization. Here we used mouse models to examine host determinants that affect H. pylori BabA expression. BabA expression was lost by phase variation as frequently in WT mice as in RAG2-/- mice...

We have examined the role of the callose synthase PMR4 in basal resistance and beta-aminobutyric acid-induced resistance (BABA-IR) of Arabidopsis thaliana against the hemi-biotrophic pathogen Pseudomonas syringae and the necrotrophic pathogen Alternaria brassicicola. Compared to wild-type plants, the pmr4-1 mutant displayed enhanced basal resistance against P. syringae, which correlated with co...

A significant proportion of global crop production is annually lost to pests and diseases (Savary et al., 2012). While pesticides help to reduce these losses, there is growing concern about pesticide resistance and their impacts on health and environment. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) aims to reduce pesticide usage through a combination of different strategies, including resistant crop culti...

The priming agent β-aminobutyric acid (BABA) is known to enhance Arabidopsis resistance to the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato (Pst) DC3000 by potentiating salicylic acid (SA) defence signalling, notably PR1 expression. The molecular mechanisms underlying this phenomenon remain unknown. A genome-wide microarray analysis of BABA priming during Pst DC3000 infection revealed dir...

S (PH D THESIS) Studies on extracellular metabolites of white rot basidiomycete involved in selective lignin degradation (Graduate School ofAgriculture, Laboratory ofBiomass Conversion, RISH, Kyoto University)

0 Know, oh my children, that very long ago, in the Eastern city of Baghdad, there lived an old man named Ali Baba. Every day Ali Baba would go to the bazaar to buy or sell things. This is a story which is partly about Ali Baba, and partly also about a cave, a strange cave whose secret and wonder exist to this day. But I get ahead of myself . . . One day in the Baghdad bazaar a thief grabbed a p...

UNLABELLED Helicobacter pylori undergoes rapid microevolution during chronic infection, but very little is known about how this affects host interaction factors. The best-studied adhesin of H. pylori is BabA, which mediates binding to the blood group antigen Lewis b [Le(b)]. To study the dynamics of Le(b) adherence during human infection, we analyzed paired H. pylori isolates obtained sequentia...