La reazione di difesa delle piante a nematodi endoparassiti: approcci fisiologici, biochimici e molecolari.

Plant defence reactions to endoparasitic nematodes: physiological, biochemical and molecular approaches. Several mechanisms of constitutive and/or induced resistance in plants appear to play important roles in limiting the development of cyst and root-knot nematodes. However, the existence of nematode populations exhibiting different degrees of pathogenesis, and the occurrence in the same population of individuals that can overcome resistance in resistant plants, indicate that more insight is needed regarding nematode defence mechanisms in plants. The aim of our study was to characterize new sources of resistance to be transferred into tomato and pea by analysing plant-nematode interactions between tomato and Meloidogyne incognita and between pea and Heterodera goettingiana. The analyses were focused on the role of some oxidative products during plant-nematode interactions and the expression of genes specifically involved in the host defence response.