Engineered resistance against fungal plant pathogens

Development of genetic engineering technology and molecular characterization of plant defense responses have provided strategies for controlling plant diseases additional to those based on chemical control or classical breeding programs. Most of these alternative strategies are based on the overproduction of one component of the plant's own defense response. Some strategies exploit the hypersensitive response, a rapid, localized death of tissue surrounding the infection site, which is observed in many resistant plants upon unsuccessful pathogen attack. Most approaches to increase resistance to fungi have been described to be successful under laboratory conditions. Incorporation of these successful, alternative strategies in resistance breeding programs of agriculturally important crops will depend on the results obtained from field experiments.