The gene-for-gene concept and beyond: Interactions and signals

The gene-for-gene concept is central to most efforts to bioengineer plants for disease resistance. In the more than 50 years since Flor first proposed the gene-for-gene concept, it has served as an important focus for research on plant disease resistance. This presentation looks briefly at the 'evolution' of our understanding of gene-for-gene resistance in relation to the prospects for bioengineering. The Cladosporium fulvum-tomato interaction is used to illustrate how understanding the signal transduction pathway following interactions between the pathogen elicitor and a putative receptor may lead to new approaches to bioengineering disease resistant cultivars. In this context, recent data are reviewed, confirming that the oxidative burst seen in the defense response of tomato to C. fulvum has strong similarity to that of mammalian phagocytic neutrophil cells.