Inducible direct plant defense against insect herbivores: A review

• 来源期刊: 中国昆虫科学（英文版）
• 关键词: chemical defense defensive protease lectins protease inhibitor secondary metabolite
• 年，卷（期）: 2008,（2）
• 页码范围: 101-114
• 页数: 14页
• 语种: 英文

摘要

Plants respond to insect herbivory with responses broadly known as direct defenses, indirect defenses, and tolerance. Direct defenses include all plant traits that affect susceptibility of host plants by themselves. Overall categories of direct plant defenses against insect herbivores include limiting food supply, reducing nutrient value, reducing preference, disrupting physical structures, and inhibiting chemical pathways of the attacking insect. Major known defense chemicals include plant secondary metabolites, protein inhibitors of insect digestive enzymes, proteases, lectins, amino acid deaminases and oxidases. Multiple factors with additive or even synergistic impact are usually involved in defense against a specific insect species, and factors of major importance to one insect species may only be of secondary importance or not effective at all against another insect species. Extensive qualitative and quantitative high throughput analyses of temporal and spatial variations in gene expression, protein level and activity, and metabolite concentration will accelerate not only the understanding of the overall mechanisms of direct defense, but also accelerate the identification of specific targets for enhancement of plant resistance for agriculture.