Narasimhamurthy Konappa¹, Soumya Krishnamurthy², Fazilath Uzma¹, Rajeshwari H Patil¹ and Srinivas Chowdappa¹

 ¹Department of Microbiology, Biotechnology and Food Technology, Jnana Bharathi Campus, Bangalore University, Bangalore–560 056, Karnataka, India

²Field Marshal K M Cariappa College, a Constituent College of Mangalore University, Madikeri 571 201, Karnataka, India

() Corresponding Author: n.murthy10@gmail.com

 Received: April 15, 2026/ Revised: May 20, 2026/Accepted: May 28, 2026

Highlights

  • Reviews the induction and differential expression of pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins in plants.
  • Explores the role of PR proteins in plant innate immunity against phytopathogens.
  • Discusses key PR gene families including chitinases, glucanases, defensins, and thionins.
  • Highlights PR protein-mediated resistance under biotic and abiotic stress conditions.
  • Emphasizes the potential of PR gene overexpression for developing disease-resistant crops.

 Abstract

 Plant diseases control is usually based on the usage of bactericides, fungicides and lethal to host invaders, causal agents of plants. Though, the harmful consequence of these synthetic pesticides on the environment and health of humans strongly enforces the exploration for new, safety means of plant disease management. Plants are continuously risked by phytopathogens, disturbing main crops conceding food safety. They have developed several mechanisms to defense pathogen disease, containing the of gene cascades, encoding several receptors, effectors, production of secondary metabolites, peptides and proteins having antimicrobial action and indicating and defensive compounds. Among these, production of pathogenesis related (PR) proteins from host plants in active resistance and their overexpression has directed to improved resistance to adverse situations is definite significant as PR proteins are an crucial constituent of innate immune reactions in host plants in abiotic or biotic pressure situations. Response proteins might also be enzymes in biosynthetic pathways for the synthesis of phytoalexins or lignification of cell walls, low molecular weight lethal compounds that inhibit the pathogens. Induction of PR proteins has been described in several plant types containing to several families signifying a common part for these prot PR proteins in variation to abiotic stress / biotic stress situations. The PR genes (defensin, thaumatin, glucanase, thionin, and chitinase) overexpression has significantly enhanced the level of resistance response in plants to a varied variety of phytopathogens, either independently or in combination.

Keywords: PR proteins; differential expression; immune responses; biotic stress; biocontrol; pathogens

How to cite this article

Konappa, N., Krishnamurthy, S., Uzma, F., Patil, R. H., & Chowdappa, S. (2026). Differential expression and induction of pathogenesis related proteins in response to plant pathogen infection. Microbial Science Archives, 6(2), 38–59. https://doi.org/10.47587/MSA.2026.6203

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

 

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