Plant defence

Have you ever wondered about that sharp, green note that hits your nose when you mow the lawn or cut flower stems? Those are green leaf volatiles, or GLVs: easily evaporated oils that plants use to communicate with other plants and defend themselves against herbivores or pathogens like bacteria or fungi. Almost every green plant can quickly synthesize and release GLVs when attacked, both directly warding off attackers as well as indirectly attracting predators of herbivores like insects and priming the plant’s other defense mechanisms. Researchers know that GLVs play an important role in protecting plants, but how they work remains unclear. I am a biochemistry researcher, and through a collaboration between the Wang Lab and Stratmann Lab of the University of South Carolina, my colleagues and I study how plant cells deploy green leaf volatiles. In our recently published research, we identified the potential signaling pathways GLVs use to induce defense responses in tomato c...