ABSTRACT
This chapter starts with a discussion of plant ethylene production in response to pathogens. It deals with the generation of stress ethylene and its significance in one specific instance, in plant pathogenesis. The enhanced formation of ethylene is an early biochemical event in many plant-pathogen interactions. Virus-induced ethylene production was first reported in 1951 for several host-virus interactions causing local necrotic lesions and has been studied extensively in tobacco plants infected with tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). The induction of ethylene formation in pea pods by compatible and incompatible pathogens could be blocked with aminoethoxyvinylglycine (AVG), indicating that pathogen-induced ethylene biosynthesis depended on 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC) synthase. If ethylene plays a role in disease resistance, a simple way to protect plants might be to treat them with ethylene. The chapter ends by summarizing the interesting implications and the many open questions with regard to ethylene in pathogenesis.
