Abstract
Plants are constantly challenged by various environmental stressors ranging from abiotic—sunlight, elevated temperatures, drought, and nutrient deficits, to biotic factors—microbial pathogens and insect pests. These not only affect the quality of harvest but also the yield, leading to substantial annual crop losses, worldwide. Although plants have a multi-layered immune system, phytopathogens such as species of the oomycete genus Phytophthora, can employ elaborate mechanisms to breach this defense. For the last two decades, researchers have focused on the co-evolution between Phytophthora and interacting hosts to decouple the mechanisms governing their molecular associations. This has provided a comprehensive understanding of the pathobiology of plants affected by oomycetes. Ultimately, this is important for the development of strategies to sustainably improve agricultural production. Therefore, this paper discusses the present-day state of knowledge of the strategic mode of operation employed by species of Phytophthora for successful infection. Specifically, we consider motility, attachment, and host cell wall degradation used by these pathogenic species to obtain nutrients from their host. Also discussed is an array of effector types from apoplastic (hydrolytic proteins, protease inhibitors, elicitins) to cytoplastic (RxLRs, named after Arginine-any amino acid-Leucine-Arginine consensus sequence and CRNs, for CRinkling and Necrosis), which upon liberation can subvert the immune response and promote diseases in plants.
Highlights
The challenges of food security are extensive and can surpass efforts to increase food production
There is no doubt that studies on phytopathogen infection including those caused by Phytophthora species are focused on tackling how these phytopathogens access their potential host and most importantly, how do they suppress host immunity for disease development
We have discussed four strategies that Phytophthora species employ for successful infection
Summary
The challenges of food security are extensive and can surpass efforts to increase food production. Phytophthora can cause up to 100% of loses in many plant species annually and billions of dollars are spent every year to mitigate associated diseases little success has been recorded [11] Pathogens of this genus certainly live up to the name Phytophthora that literally translates as “plant destroyers”, a term coined by a German scientist [28] when he was describing the potato late blight pathogen [29]. Some of the useful findings of this concerted effort relate to the hemibiotrophic lifestyle of Phytophthora species [16] This parasitic lifestyle requires a living host cell during the early phase of infection and subsequently transition to a devastating necrotrophic phase, which is epitomized by the secretion of effector proteins that contribute to the capacity of pathogens to uphold the biotrophic phase for some time and to survive post biotrophy. Pod rot Root and fruit rot Leaf blight, pod, bud and fruit rot Root and stem rot Downy mildew Foliar leaf spots and shoot blight, Bleeding stem cankers in Oaks Root and stem rot Foliar leaf spots, shoot blight, and stem cankers
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