Ricerc@Sapienza

Oxylipins are a newly emerging group of signals that serve defence roles or promote virulence. To identify specific host and fungal genes and oxylipins governing the interactions between maize and Fusarium verticillioides, maize wild-type and lipoxygenase3 (lox3) mutant were inoculated with either F. verticillioides wild-type or linoleate-diol-synthase 1-deleted mutant (?Fvlds1D). The results showed that lox3 mutants were more resistant to F. verticillioides.

Plant roots release complex mixtures of bioactive molecules, including compounds that affect the activity and modify the composition of the rhizosphere microbiome. In this work, we investigated the initial phase of the interaction between tomato and an effective biocontrol strain of Trichoderma harzianum (T22). We found that root exudates (RE), obtained from plants grown in a split-root system and exposed to various biotic and abiotic stress factors (wounding, salt, pathogen attack), were able to stimulate the growth and act as chemoattractants of the biocontrol fungus.