Parasitism proteins in nematode-plant interactions.

The current battery of candidate parasitism proteins secreted by nematodes to modify plant tissues for parasitism includes cell-wall-modifying enzymes of potential prokaryotic origin, multiple regulators of host cell cycle and metabolism, proteins that can localize to the plant cell nucleus, potential suppressors of host defense, mimics of plant molecules, and a relatively large cadre of predicted novel nematode parasitism proteins. Phenotypic effects of expressing nematode parasitism proteins in transformed plant tissues, protein-protein interaction assays, and RNA-mediated interference (RNAi) analyses are currently providing exciting evidence of the biological role of candidate nematode secreted parasitism proteins and identifying potential novel means of developing transgenic resistance to nematodes in crops.