The Plant Cytoskeleton Remodelling in Nematode Induced Feeding Sites

Abstract

Cytoskeleton remodelling is a crucial process in many aspects of plant cell growth and differentiation, including intracellular organization, division, expansion, motility and interactions with the environment. In the last years, it has become apparent that the cytoskeleton plays also a crucial role in plant–microbe interactions. However, not much is currently known about the proteins which regulate actin and microtubule array remodelling during interactions with plant pathogens. Sedentary endoparasitic nematodes interact with their hosts in a quite unique and intriguing way. They induce the redifferentiation of root cells into specialized multinucleate and hypertrophied feeding cells essential for nematode growth and reproduction. Major rearrangements of the cytoskeleton occur during feeding cell formation. The first plant candidate proteins involved in giant cell actin and microtubule cytoskeleton reorganization were recently revealed and two of them, MAP65-3 and ADF2, have been shown to be essential for nematode-induced giant cell ontogenesis in Arabidopsis. A better knowledge of the plant response during the compatible interaction should allow the identification of targets to engineer resistance to parasitic nematodes in crops.