Genetic analysis of the species-specific parasitism of plant pathogenic fungi

摘要

Host-parasite specificity between plants and microorganisms has been divided into two types, i.e., plant species specificity (host species specificity) determining the host species range and cultivar specificity determining the cultivar range within a given host species. The latter was genetically characterized as being controlled by gene-forgene interactions, while the former was considered to be genetically complex. During the past 25 years, we have demonstrated that gene-for-gene interactions underlie some specificities between plant species and fungal pathogens that have been considered as host species specificity. In this article, I present an overview of these results and discuss possible mechanisms of the parasitic specialization of plant pathogenic fungi.