Abstract
Plants produce a diverse array of secondary metabolites, many of which can inhibit the growth of microbes in vitro,leading to speculation that such molecules may protect plants against attack by pathogens (for review see [1]). Investigations of the contribution of antimicrobial compounds to plant defence have focussed mainly on phytoalexins, because these molecules are actively synthesized in and around the site of attempted infection as part of the array of induced defence responses associated with disease resistance. By definition, phytoalexins are absent from healthy plants, and accumulate only in response to pathogen attack or stress [2,3]. Recent evidence indicates that some phytoalexins can indeed act as antimicrobial phytoprotectants. For example, the ability of pea- and chickpea-infecting isolates of the fungus Nectria haematococca to detoxify host plant phytoalexins has been shown to be important for full virulence [4,5], and experiments in which levels of phytoalexins in plants have been altered, either by the generation of mutants or by transformation-mediated manipulation of gene expression, have provided evidence to link phytoalexins with disease resistance [6–9].
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Osbourn, A., Carter, J., Papadopoulou, K., Haralampidis, K., Trojanowska, M., Melton, R. (2000). Oat Root Saponins and Root-Infecting Fungi. In: Oleszek, W., Marston, A. (eds) Saponins in Food, Feedstuffs and Medicinal Plants. Proceedings of the Phythochemical Society of Europe, vol 45. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9339-7_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9339-7_13
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