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Plant Physiology 146:859-866 (2008) © 2008 American Society of Plant Biologists Avoiding Effective Defenses: Strategies Employed by Phloem-Feeding Insects1Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, Center for Plant Cell Biology, University of California, Riverside, California 92521–0124
Phytophages breach the integrity of plant tissues to recover nutrients from foliage, seeds, pollen, nectar, roots, or shoots. While many herbivores cause extensive damage, phloem-feeding insects, such as aphids and whiteflies, cause modest to barely perceptible damage, respectively. Phloem-feeding insects provide additional challenges to plants as they deplete photosynthates, vector viruses, and introduce chemical and/or protein effectors that alter plant defense signaling, infestation symptoms, and plant development (Kaloshian and Walling, 2005 With the tools of cell and molecular biology, genetics, genomics, electrophysiology, and biochemistry, investigators are providing novel insights into the complexity and dynamics of plant-herbivore interactions. Many of the reviews in this issue describe the initial events in perception, as well as the defense signals and biochemical reprogramming that influence direct (antibiotic and antixenotic) and indirect (interactions with natural enemies) defenses to tissue-damaging herbivores. This review will highlight intricacies of plant-/phloem-feeding insect interactions, with a primary focus on whiteflies and comparisons to aphids.
Although whiteflies and aphids are members of the Hemipteran suborder Sternorrhyncha, their life cycles, endosymbiont populations, and feeding activities are distinct (Baumann, 2005
Aphids and whiteflies take advantage of their adept feeding strategies and avoid or deter many plant defenses. These insects disguise themselves and deceive their hosts and natural enemies by using their stylets to deliver salivary chemicals and/or proteins into the plant to influence wound healing, defense-signaling pathways, and volatile emissions. Similar deceptive strategies are routinely employed by phytopathogenic microbes to avoid recognition and combat plant defenses (da Cunha et al., 2007
The plant selection mechanisms used by phloem-feeding insects vary. Whiteflies use color, while aphids use both visual and olfactory cues to direct flight responses to host plants (Gerling, 1990
While on the leaf surface, insects are exposed to chemicals that are imbedded in the hydrophobic cuticular waxes, including nonvolatile secondary metabolites, as well as volatile and semivolatile compounds (i.e. monoterpenes and glucosinolate-derived volatiles), which serve to attract or repel insects (Müller and Riederer, 2005
Interestingly, trichomes also induce a beneficial polyphenism in whiteflies (Guershon and Gerling, 2006
Whiteflies and aphids use tactile and gustatory cues to determine the value of a plant as a feeding and oviposition host (Gerling, 1990
The damage caused by cell punctures and the nature of salivary effectors will determine the defense-signaling pathways that are activated and metabolites and proteins that accumulate in the infested plant. In addition, the stylet path determines the constitutive and induced defenses an herbivore will encounter. To limit damage to epidermal cells and contact with extracellular defenses, hemiptera deposit beads of rapidly gelling saliva to form a flange at the leaf surface (to limit stylet slippage) and a sheath that insulates the stylets from apoplastic defenses, respectively (Miles, 1999
Aphid and whitefly stylet sheath paths are multi-branched, showing that stylets take tortuous routes to the phloem (Freeman et al., 2001
When a stylet pierces a phloem SE, the plasma membrane lesion must be rapidly sealed to prevent leakage of phloem sap into the apoplast (Will and van Bel, 2006
The closure of stylet-induced lesions, while essential for maintaining SE turgor, can inadvertently block an insect's food canal. In fact, the melon (Cucumis melo) Vat gene appears to enhance SE wound healing and, thereby, confers resistance to aphids (Martin et al., 2003
Most insects are deterred by the chemical complexity of a plant's phylloplane. However, some insects tolerate these constitutive defenses and use a plant as a host (a compatible interaction). During compatible interactions, plants perceive the amount of tissue damage, the quality and quantity of salivary signals (effectors), and the magnitude of electrical and/or hydraulic signals caused by hemipteran attack (Walling, 2000
Salicylic acid (SA), jasmonic acid (JA), and ethylene (ET) control many of the cellular and biochemical responses to pathogens and pests. These signaling pathways cross talk and may act antagonistically or synergistically (Koornneef and Pieterse, 2008
The Bemisia tabaci biotype B (silverleaf whitefly [SLWF])-Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) interaction is a clear example of an insect manipulating plant signaling to suppress effective defenses, increase plant susceptibility, and enhance insect performance (Kempema et al., 2007
SLWFs deceive Arabidopsis plants and prevent the activation of the JA-regulated defenses that actively deter nymph development. SLWFs may merely evade JA-regulated defenses due to the absence of tissue damage once a feeding site is established. Alternatively, nymph saliva may contain effectors that directly antagonize JA-regulated defenses. There is precedent for an insect effector (Glc oxidase) to suppress effective direct (nicotine production) and indirect (volatile biosynthesis) defenses (Musser et al., 2002
Similar evasive strategies appear to be active during the aphid interactions with Arabidopsis, sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), and Medicago truncatula. Behavioral studies on aphid-preinfested plants indicate that aphid feeding reduces the defenses that deter aphids (Prado and Tjallingii, 2007
The identities of most of the JA-regulated resistance traits suppressed during whitefly and aphid infestations are unknown. However, one of these traits appears to be synthesis of glucosinolates, which is complexly regulated by SA, JA, and ET (Mewis et al., 2006
It is not clear if all hemipterans suppress a subset of plant defenses to enhance their success. These conclusions can be made only when defense mutants are used in performance assays and RNAs for genes for each defense-signaling network are monitored. This is a challenge in most plants, even Arabidopsis, where networks are complex and novel defense-signaling networks are being revealed (Robert-Seilaniantz et al., 2007
Whiteflies and aphids increase PAD4 and SAG RNA levels (Pegadaraju et al., 2005
While defenses effective against aphids and whiteflies vary, it is difficult to assess the degree of overlap and specificity in the molecular responses to different phloem feeders (De Vos et al., 2005
During incompatible interactions, a plant with a resistance (R) gene rapidly recognizes an avirulent insect and the infestation is curtailed (Kaloshian and Walling, 2005
The defense-signaling mechanisms that control plant-mediated aphid resistance have parallels to incompatible responses in plant-pathogen interactions. For example, aphids cause more rapid increases in SA levels and/or PR gene RNAs in resistant than in susceptible plants (Forslund et al., 2000
It is presumed that insect saliva contains the signals (avirulence effectors) that trigger the incompatible interaction using mechanisms proposed in the guard hypothesis (Kaloshian and Walling, 2005
Immediately after herbivore attack or egg deposition, plants release stored volatiles and initiate synthesis of new volatiles for emission from the infested and distal uninfested leaves (Arimura et al., 2005
Like caterpillars, hemipteran saliva can stimulate volatile production (Williams et al., 2005
While the molecular, biochemical, and physiological changes that dictate the outcome of plant-insect interactions are beginning to be revealed, it is clear our knowledge remains in a relatively primitive state. To date, it is not clear if all herbivores manipulate one or multiple host responses for their success or if evasive tactics are employed only by a distinctive subset of phytophages. Phloem-feeding whiteflies and aphids clearly employ a wide variety of tactics to avoid or suppress effective defenses.
The importance of hemipteran salivary proteins in stimulating or suppressing plant wound and defense responses is now clear and with one exception (i.e. Ca2+-binding proteins of aphid watery saliva), the biochemical nature of effectors from phloem-feeding insects are unknown. Therefore, a renewed emphasis on biochemical characterization of insect salivas is emerging and will benefit from the increased sensitivity of current metabolomic and proteomics technologies and is likely to utilize novel transgenic bioassays to assess effector activity. These biochemical strategies will be enhanced by the growing genomics resources (genome sequences, EST collections, and microarrays) for hemipterans and their endosymbionts (Leshkowitz et al., 2006 Complementary studies to explore the complexity of plant defense-signaling networks are crucial. Today, we have snapshots of gene expression profiles after hemipteran attack. Even in Arabidopsis, where genomics resources are abundant and expression profiles are available for numerous plant-pathogen interactions, we have an incomplete knowledge of these defense networks. While oscillations of JA- and SA-regulated pathways are apparent, the integrative hubs and interconnections to other signaling pathways during plant-insect interactions have yet to be identified. Systems biology approaches to amalgamate our knowledge of pathogen and pest signaling will be critical to understand the similarities and distinctions with pathogenic biotrophs and insects. In addition, the identity of novel attacker-specific defense pathways will need to be revealed and integrated with well-characterized defense signal transduction pathways. The impact of chemical genomics screens with reporter gene bioassays should become increasingly important tools. These assays can be used to identify the molecules that induce or perturb novel insect-regulated signaling pathways and should provide clues about the chemical nature of the novel plant signal molecules and/or the insect effectors or elicitors that elude biochemical characterization. Finally, enhanced genomics resources for crop plants will be critical tools for understanding if the principles emerging from studies in model plants (Arabidopsis, Medicago) pertain to crops. High-quality and comprehensive microarrays are emerging for a variety of crops and should reveal the dynamics of defense signaling in hemipteran interactions with both monocots and dicots. Complementation of these genomics resources with genetic approaches (i.e. use of mutants, viral-induced gene silencing, RNA interference strategies, and ectopic expression of defense gene products) will reveal the signaling networks and the specific factors that dictate innate immunity and gene-for-gene-mediated defense to phloem-feeding insects. These data, when coordinated with assays to assess insect performance and interactions at the third and fourth trophic levels, should allow for the development of cogent strategies to enhance plant-based resistance to hemiptera.
I thank Fran Holzer (UC Riverside), Dr. Mien van de Ven (UC Riverside), and Dr. David Carter (UC Riverside) for images of whiteflies and whitefly-infested plants, and Drs. Isgouhi Kaloshian (UC Riverside), Gary Thompson (Oklahoma State University), and John Klingler (University of Arizona) for aphid-plant interaction photos. I thank helpful and creative suggestions of two anonymous reviewers and members of the Walling lab for helpful discussions. Received November 18, 2007; accepted January 6, 2008; published March 6, 2008.
1 This work was supported in part by the California Agricultural Experiment Station, by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)-Southwest Consortium Grant for Genetics and Water Resources, and by the USDA-NRI Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (award no. 99–35301–8077 to L.L.W.). The author responsible for distribution of materials integral to the findings presented in this article in accordance with the policy described in the Instructions for Authors (www.plantphysiol.org) is: Linda L. Walling (linda.walling{at}ucr.edu). www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/doi/10.1104/pp.107.113142 * E-mail linda.walling{at}ucr.edu.
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