Plant-Insect Interaction

The relationship between insect and plant is a hot topic in the research field recently. They interact with each other in the course of evolution and form several of defenses and adaptations mechanism. It's very important to probe into the rule of the interaction to the theory of insect management. We studied the role of salicylic acid response pathway in the defense of plant against insect chewing, the defense information transfer between plant individual, and the physical response of insect to plant defense. The results indicated that: I. Salicylic acid signaling pathway involve in the defense response of plant against insect. After exposure to cotton bollworm, tomato leaves rapidly accumulated a high level of SA. The transcription of PR1 and BGL2 genes, the marker genes of SA pathway, was up-regulated. Enhanced endogenous SA level was accompanied by an increase in the endogenous H2O2 level as compared with controls. Spraying tomato plants with a solution containing either SA or methyl salicylic acid (Me-SA) elicited the similar induction response with insect feeding. . II. The information transfer between plant individuals is species-special, and the signaling is stronger between intra-species than inter-species. When tomato and tobacco plants, two species of one family, were incubated in chambers with tomato which was damaged by cotton bollworm, PR1, BGL2, and PAL gene expression levels were up-regulated in the tomato and tobacco leaves. However, the gene expressions are significantly higher in tomato than those...