Institute of Plant Science and Resources,
Okayama University
Group of Plant-Insect Interactions (~ since April 2011)
Professor Ivan Galis
Plant defenses against insects evolved in a long term process of co-evolution between plants and herbivorous insects. In this process, plants developed enormous diversity in their chemical and mechanical defenses, and tuned regulation of defense mechanism to optimize the distribution of plant resources between defense and growth. Two main defense strategies of plants against insects include direct and indirect defense mechanisms.
We focus on understanding of plant-herbivore interactions and induction of direct and indirect defenses in plants at following levels:
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Recognition of herbivore attack by plants and identification of herbivore-specific elicitors
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Role and cross-talk of plant stress hormones in signal transduction of herbivory-related signals: jasmonic acid (JA), ethylene, salicylic acid (SA) and abscisic acid (ABA)
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Transcriptional regulation of plant responses to herbivore attack and the role of transcription factors (TFs) in defense
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Identification of novel secondary metabolites that mediate defense against herbivores in monocot plants
Group of Plant-Insect Interactions Okayama University 2-20-1 Chuo, Kurashiki, Okayama 710-0046, Japan TEL: +81-86-434-1235 (Office I.G.)