Deciphering the role of ethylene in plant-herbivore interactions

Most plants emit ethylene in response to herbivory by insects from many different feeding guilds. The elicitors of these ethylene emissions are thought to be microorganisms or oral secretion-specific compounds that are transferred when the attacking insect feeds. To find the receptors for these elicitors and describe the signaling cascades that are subsequently activated will be the challenge of future research. Past experiments on the function of herbivore-induced ethylene, which were biased toward the use of chemical treatments to manipulate ethylene, identified seven ethylene-dependent defense responses. In contrast, a genetic toolbox that consists of several mutants has rarely been used and to date, mutants have helped to identify only one additional ethylene-dependent defense response. Ethylene-dependent responses include the emission of specific volatile organic compounds as indirect defense, the accumulation of phenolic compounds, and proteinase inhibitor activity. Besides being ethylene regulated, these defenses depend strongly on the wound-hormone jasmonic acid (JA). That ethylene requires the concomitant induction of JA, or other signals, appears to be decisive. Rather than being the principal elicitor of defense responses, ethylene modulates the sensitivity to a second signal and its downstream responses. Given this modulator role, and the artifacts associated with the use of chemical treatments to manipulate ethylene production and perception, future advances in the study of ethylene's function in plant-herbivore interactions will likely come from the use of signaling mutants or transgenic plants. It will be exciting to see if adaptive phenotypic plasticity is largely an ethylene-mediated response.