ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT Plants respond to pathogenic bacteria by activating a variety of active and passive defense mechanisms. These defense responses, which serve to limit the growth and spread of pathogens within the plants, include hypersensitive programmed cell death, crosslinking and reinforcement of cell walls, biosynthesis of phytoalexins, metabolism of phenolic compounds, and transcriptional induction of defense genes, including pathogenesis-related (PR) genes. In addition to the PR proteins, plants produce defense enzymes such as peroxidase (PO) and polyphenol oxidase (PPO), which are catalysts in the formation of lignin. In this chapter, progress in utilizing defense enzymes in the control of plant pathogenic bacteria is summarized and discussed.
