Application of antimicrobial peptides in plant protection: making use of the overlooked merits

Abstract

Pathogen infection is one of the major causes of yield loss in the crop field. The rapid increase of antimicrobial resistance in plant pathogens has urged researchers to develop both new pesticides and management strategies for plant protection. The antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) showed potential on eliminating plant pathogenic fungi and bacteria. Here, we first summarize several overlooked advantages and merits of AMPs, which includes the steep dose-response relations, fast killing ability, broad synergism, slow resistance selection. We then discuss the possible application of AMPs for plant protection with above merits, and highlight how AMPs can be incorporated into a more efficient integrated management system that both increases the crop yield and reduce resistance evolution of pathogens.

Keywords: antimicrobial peptide (AMP); phytopathogen; plant protection; rapid killing; resistance evolution; synergism.

Figure 1

The merits of AMPs and their application in plant protection. (A) An brief illustration of AMPs’ merits. AMPs are able to rapidly kill bacteria within minutes. Due to distinct killing mechanism, they can deactivate non-growing bacterial and fungal spores. In addition, they also broadly synergize with other AMPs and antibiotics. Last, resistance evolution of pathogens to AMPs are particularly slow with high fitness cost. (B) AMPs with above merits can play an important role in integrated pathogen management. An integrated management methods includes endogenously expressing AMPs in plant to directly kill invading pathogens and to regulate symbiosis and root microbiome. Also, spraying AMPs in crop field with conventional antibiotic can form a synergistic effect that more efficiently eliminates pathogens, reduces the use of conventional antibiotics as well as delays pathogen resistance.