CHAPTER
15
Recent advances in the role
of protein kinases during
plant-herbivore interaction
Sameer Dixit* and Akanchha Shukla
Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
15.1 Plant-herbivory interaction: a complex phenomenon
The interaction between plants and herbivores has evolved through B350 million years
of co-evolution (Wheat et al., 2007). Plants developed many but mainly three defense strate-
gies that are, deterrence, resistance, and tolerance against herbivore pests. On the other
hand, herbivores developed two main lifestyles to counter host plant defenses, (i) Specialist
herbivores, establish specific counter-strategies to feed on limited plants, and (ii) Generalist,
adapt their defense network to feed on many hosts (Salehipourshirazi et al., 2021).
Specialist herbivores developed a handful of different mechanisms to counter plant
defenses such as target site mutation that is, insect specialists to fed on cardenolide contain-
ing plants have N122H replacement and substitution of single or combined Q111 and N122
amino acids in Na
1
,K
1
-ATPase α-subunit (Dobler et al., 2012), or modified feeding behav-
ior that is, to overcome latex defense in milkweed, monarch butterfly first chewing a furrow
in the petiole or leaf midrib and then feed on distant to the chew site where latex flow is
minimal (Helmus & Dussourd, 2005). Detoxification and sequestration of plant defense
metabolites are also reported mechanisms in specialist herbivores to overcome host defenses
(Beran et al., 2018; Ratzka et al., 2002). While in the case of generalist herbivores detoxifica-
tion of plant allelochemicals and suppression of plant defense machinery are proposed
mechanisms to counter host defenses (Barrett & Heil, 2012; Salehipourshirazi et al., 2021).
Herbivores also modified their feeding behavior and developed two major feeding mechan-
isms (Dixit et al., 2013). Biting and chewing herbivores damage the plants by directly
* Current address: Lab 108, National Institute of Plant Genome Research, New Delhi, New Delhi, India
269
Plant Receptor-Like Kinases
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-90594-7.00018-1 © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.