Insight into physiological, molecular, and proteomic changes associated with phytoplasma infection in crop plants

Phytoplasmas are insect transmitted bacterial pathogens that bring about devastating diseases in a wide range of plants including crops, ornamental plants, fruit trees, and vegetables. Phytoplasma diseased plants often display symptoms that thought to be resulted from altered plant development. Knowledge about the molecular basis of plant-phytoplasma interaction is limited because they are unable to be cultured under in vitro conditions and largely inaccessible in their host plants. The detailed response of several plant species to phytoplasma infection has been explored at transcriptome level using conventional and recently developed next-generation sequencing (NGS) based approaches. Considering the broad changes that can occur in proteome in terms of abundance, post translational modification, sub-cellular localization, and protein-protein interactions in a plant in response to pathogen infection, proteomics provides valuable information that are essential for in-depth understanding of plant-pathogen interaction. Till now, little progress has been made in understanding plant-phytoplasma interaction from proteomics view point. Here, we first briefly outline physiological and transcriptional changes associated with phytoplasma infection in some plant species and then review changes in proteome of plants in response to phytoplasma infection with a particular emphasis on comparative studies that dealt with changes in abundance of proteins.