ABSTRACT
The fungus Puccinia triticina is the causal agent of wheat leaf rust. This disease causes great damages, which may compromise wheat crop yields by up to 80% when the infection is intense before flowering and grain filling. The use of resistant cultivars is the best strategy to control leaf rust. However, due to the pathogen variability, genotype resistance is easily overcome within three years under field conditions. To defend against the pathogen infection, the plant triggers defense mechanisms, which aim to prevent the fungus from colonizing the host tissues. Such defense mechanisms may be associated with the expression of genes that have a role in encoding proteins involved in resistance. In this review, the importance of both the plant-pathogen interaction and the role of involved proteins is discussed. The main proteomic techniques to identify and quantify the different proteins expressed in plant cells are also presented.
Keywords
Triticum aestivum; Puccinia triticina; proteomics; resistance; infection