Engineering disease resistance in plants

Ever since the initial discovery of the molecules and genes involved in disease resistance in plants, attempts have been made to engineer durable disease resistance in economically important crop plants. Unfortunately, many of these attempts have failed, owing to the complexity of disease-resistance signalling and the sheer diversity of infection mechanisms that different pathogens use. Although disease-resistant transgenic plants or seeds are not yet available commercially, future product development seems likely as our current level of understanding of pathogenesis and plant defence improves.