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Plant Antimicrobial Peptides

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Book cover Host Defense Peptides and Their Potential as Therapeutic Agents

Abstract

Disease afflicts crop productivity as well as nutritional attributes. Pathogens have the ability to mutate rapidly and thereby develop resistance to pesticides. Despite plant’s multilayer of innate defence against pathogens, often the latter are able to penetrate and establish themselves on plant host. The discovery of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) has the promise of durable defence by quickly eliminating pathogens through membrane lysis. AMPs characteristically are made up of from fewer than 20 amino acids to about 100 amino acids, and yet are structurally diverse. AMPs in plants are classified into cyclotides, defensins, lipid transfer proteins (LTPs), thionins, snakins, hevein-like peptides, knottin-type peptides, and others. It is important to characterize and study mechanism of their action in order to develop a wide range of structures with the potential to provide durable plant immunity against pathogens. We bring together recent information on the mechanisms by which AMPs are able to help the plant to thwart pathogen attack. Although permeabilizing cellular membrane is a major mechanism known for AMP action, new and diverse modes of action have recently been unearthed, including targeting of intracellular function of the pathogen.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. AAFC Lethbridge Research Centre, Lethbridge, AB, Canada

    Ravinder K. Goyal

  2. Sustainable Agricultural Systems Laboratory, United States Department of Agriculture, ARS’s Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, Beltsville, MD, 20705, USA

    Autar K. Mattoo

Authors
  1. Ravinder K. Goyal
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  2. Autar K. Mattoo
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Correspondence to Autar K. Mattoo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Health Sciences Centre, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

    Richard M. Epand

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Goyal, R.K., Mattoo, A.K. (2016). Plant Antimicrobial Peptides. In: Epand, R. (eds) Host Defense Peptides and Their Potential as Therapeutic Agents. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32949-9_5

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