Cell biology of fungal infection of plants

Abstract

Plants are, in general, resistant to the attempts of potential fungal pathogens to infect them. Those fungi that do succeed in establishing infection and disease, however, cause widespread environmental damage and economic losses. In order to establish infection, fungal pathogens must overcome highly effective, constitutive physical and chemical barriers to pathogen ingress. They must avoid inducing additional host defenses, and they must be able to deploy mechanisms for obtaining from the plant the nutrients they need for growth and reproduction. In order to meet all these requirements, successful fungal pathogens employ a range of different infection strategies. The details of these strategies may be specific to a particular fungal species, they may differ according to the nature of the plant surface, and they may depend within a single species on the type of spore initiating the infection process.