Cross-kingdom signaling manipulation by insect-associated microbial symbionts: Linking molecular mechanisms to pest management strategies.
Kashkouli M, Fathipour Y
Plant Signaling
When aphids or caterpillars land on your garden beds, they may be traveling with microbial hitchhikers that chemically disarm your plants' defenses before the feeding damage even begins — and understanding that trick could lead to far smarter, more targeted ways to protect your vegetables and flowers.
Plants have chemical alarm systems — hormone signals that trigger defensive responses when something starts eating them. Many plant-eating insects carry microbes that act like saboteurs, secreting molecules that shut those alarms off or scramble the signals entirely. Scientists are now mapping exactly how this chemical hijacking works across the boundaries between kingdoms of life, with the goal of turning that knowledge into new tools for protecting plants.
Key Findings
Insect-associated microbial symbionts directly manipulate three of the plant's most critical immune hormone pathways — jasmonic acid, salicylic acid, and ethylene — to suppress or reprogram defenses during herbivore feeding.
These microbes deploy a diverse chemical arsenal including effector proteins (such as histidine-rich calcium-binding proteins) that converge on conserved signaling hubs shared across many plant species.
The cross-kingdom manipulation represents a new conceptual target for pest management: disrupting the microbe-plant interface rather than targeting the insect or plant alone.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Insects that eat plants often carry microbial partners — bacteria, fungi, and other microbes — that actively sabotage plant chemical defenses, making plants easier targets. This review maps how those microbes hack the core hormone alarm systems plants use to fight back, and explores how that knowledge could reshape pest control.
Abstract Preview
Microbial symbionts associated with herbivorous insects can modulate plant hormone networks and reconfigure induced defenses during feeding. This review synthesizes current knowledge on how symbion...
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