Impact of the omic technologies for understanding the modes of action of biological control agents against plant pathogens

• Published in: BioControl (Dordrecht, Netherlands) Vol. 60; no. 6; pp. 725 - 746
• Main Authors: Massart, Sebastien, Perazzolli, Michele, Höfte, Monica, Pertot, Ilaria, Jijakli, M. Haïssam
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.12.2015; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Agriculture; Animal Biochemistry; Animal Ecology; Antibiotics; Behavioral Sciences; Biological control; biological control agents; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biosynthesis; Effectiveness; Entomology; Genes; Genomes; Genomics; Host plants; Identification; Life Sciences; mechanism of action; messenger RNA; Metabolites; Microorganisms; Motility; mutants; Pathogens; Peptides; Pesticides; plant pathogens; Plant Pathology; proteins; proteome; Proteomes; Proteomics; Review; transcriptome; Transcriptomes; Transcriptomics; Tri-trophic interactions; tritrophic interactions; Trophic relationships; Biocontrol agent; Transcriptomics; Biological control; Genomics; Omics; Proteomics
• ISSN: 1386-6141; 1573-8248
• DOI: 10.1007/s10526-015-9686-z

The characterization of microbial biological control agents (MBCAs) is crucial to improve their efficacy and consistency as biopesticides. Powerful approaches to characterize MBCA’s modes of action are provided by modern molecular technologies. This paper reviews improvements achieved in this subject by three “omics” approaches: namely the genomic, the transcriptomic and the proteomic approaches. The paper discusses the advantages and drawbacks of new molecular techniques and ‘discovery driven’ approaches to the study of the biocontrol properties against plant pathogens. Omics technologies are capable of: (i) identifying the genome, transcriptome or proteome features of an MBCA strain, (ii) comparing properties of strains/mutants with different biocontrol efficacy, (iii) identifying and characterizing genes, mRNAs and proteins involved in MBCA modes of action, and (iv) simultaneously studying the transcriptome or proteome of the plant host, the plant pathogen and the MBCAs in relation to their bi- or tri-trophic interactions.