摘要
The prediction of human population growth worldwide indicates there will be a need to substantially increase food production in order to meet the demand on food supply.This can be achieved in part by the effective management of insect pests. Since plants have co-evolved with herbivorous insects for millions of years, they have developed an array of defense genes to protect themselves against a wide variety of chewing and sucking insects.Using these naturally-occurring genes via genetic engineering represents an environmentally friendly insect pest-control measure. Insects, however, have been actively evolving adaptive mechanisms to evade natural plant defenses. Such evolved adaptability undoubtedly has helped insects during the last century to rapidly overcome a great many humanimposed management practices and agents, including chemical insecticides and genetically engineered plants. Thus, better understanding of the molecular and genetic basis of plant defense and insect counter-defense mechanisms is imperative, not only from a basic science perspective, but also for biotechnology-based pest control practice. In this review, we emphasize the recent advance and understanding of molecular strategies of attack-counterattack and defense-counter-defense between plants and their herbivores.
The prediction of human population growth worldwide indicates there will be aneed to substantially increase food production in order to meet the demand on food supply. This canbe achieved in part by the effective management of insect pests. Since plants have co-evolved withherbivorous insects for millions of years, they have developed an array of defense genes to protectthemselves against a wide variety of chewing and sucking insects. Using these naturally-occurringgenes via genetic engineering represents an environmentally friendly insect pest-control measure.Insects, however, have been actively evolving adaptive mechanisms to evade natural plant defenses.Such evolved adaptability undoubtedly has helped insects during the last century to rapidly overcomea great many human-imposed management practices and agents, including chemical insecticides andgenetically engineered plants. Thus, better understanding of the molecular and genetic basis ofplant defense and insect counter-defense mechanisms is imperative, not only from a basic scienceperspective, but also for biotechnology-based pest control practice. In this review, we emphasizethe recent advance and understanding of molecular strategies of attack-counterattack anddefense-counter-defense between plants and their herbivores.
