Metabolic responses of plants to Meloidogyne species parasitism: A review on molecular events and functions

Abstract

The sedentary endoparasitic nematodes, Meloidogyne species, induce the formation of permanent feeding structures in the roots and alter the morpho-physiological and molecular events during parasitism. Several parasitism genes have been identified, indicating that effector proteins are important players in plant nematode interactions. During the interaction, many molecular events occur in host plants, such as pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMP)-triggered immunity (PTI) and effector triggered immunity (ETI) by which they suppress parasitism genes of nematodes. Plant-nematode interactions are complex and dynamic events that reflect the activation and suppression of expressed genes encoding various defence-related proteins, hormones, and enzymes. The omic studies such as metabolomics, proteomics, genomics, and transcriptomics helped us learn more about how nematodes and their hosts work together. This review highlights the metabolic response of host plants during root-knot nematode interaction. In addition, we review the role of effector protein in host parasitism and defence-related pathways and highlight the transcriptional analysis of differentially expressed genes that remain and play key roles against nematode parasitism. We also gathered information on how these knowledge gaps could be addressed and correlated their potential impact and application in the parasitism of the Meloidogyne species.

Keywords

• Plant-nematode interaction
• Parasitism gene
• Effector protein
• Metabolites profiling