Biotechnological approaches for enhancing the resistance of tomato plants to phytopathogenic bacteria

Editorial to Special Issue "Plant-Microbe Interactions"

“…For example, basic research deals with questions such as the effect of interactions with microorganisms on plant physiological or developmental parameters (Šašek et al, 2012), the involvement of particular plant genes in resistance to pathogens (Kalachova et al, 2022), the influence of the environment on immune responses (Janda et al, 2019), the mechanism of pathogen virulence (Almási et al, 2023) or, for example, the study of pathogen occurrence and transmission in a given area (Kyrychenko et al, 2023). The applied research focuses on developing new approaches and products to protect crops against pathogens (Buziashvili et al, 2023;Kovalenko et al, 2023) or to increase crop yield by exploiting interactions with symbionts (Fekete et al, 2024).…”

“…Interestingly, the bacterial pathogens capable of infecting tomato, Pseudomonas syringae and Ralstonia solanacea, were ranked highest in the "Top 10" list of bacterial pathogens (Mansfield et al, 2012), demonstrating the importance of development of the strategies for the protection of tomato against bacteria. Among biotechnological approaches, techniques based on genome editing (NGTs) are likely to play the most important role in current and future research (Buziashvili et al, 2023). However, NGTs are not omnipotent, and their effective use requires knowledge of the processes in plants that are affected by (or play a role in) interactions with pathogens or symbionts.…”