OLIGOGLUCOSIDE ELICITOR-MEDIATED ACTIVATION OF PLANT DEFENSE

Plants have acquired defense mechanisms to counteract potential pathog ens. One such strategy involves inducible defense reactions that are a ctivated by elicitors, signaling compounds of diverse nature. For one class of elicitors, oligoglucosides, recent developments in the charac terization and isolation of an oligoclucan-binding protein, a putative elicitor receptor, and isolation of a cDNA that encodes the binding p rotein are discussed. Furthermore, the discovery of a role for calcium in the elicitation process is described. Finally, the identification of polymerase chain reaction products whose sequences indicate that th ey encode cytochrome P-450-dependent enzymes with possible roles in th e formation of phytoalexins, antimicrobial plant defense compounds, is reported. These advances may lay the foundation for the first charact erization of a receptor and subsequent signaling events in oligoglucan elicitor perception by higher plants. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc .