Recognition, Elicitors and the Hypersensitive Reaction

Abstract

In order to understand the biochemical basis underlying control of resistance to plant pathogens it is essential to integrate biological, physiological and molecular studies. During the meeting it became clear that there are disturbing variations in the meaning that different workers attach to terms such as elicitor, recognition, hypersensitive reaction, and even plant cell death. I would like to comment on the use of these terms and attempt to provide a framework to focus attention on the critical processes occurring during infection development and to allow well defined interdisciplinary studies to develop.