Antimicrobial peptides: Modes of mechanism, modulation of defense responses

Complicated schemes of classical breeding and their drawbacks, environmental risks imposed by agrochemicals, decrease of arable land, and coincident escalating damages of pests and pathogens have accentuated the necessity for highly efficient measures to improve crop protection. During co-evolution of host-microbe interactions, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have exhibited a brilliant history in protecting host organisms against devastation by invading pathogens. Since the 1980s, a plethora of AMPs has been isolated from and characterized in different organisms. Nevertheless the AMPs expressed in plants render them more resistant to diverse pathogens, a more orchestrated approach based on knowledge of their mechanisms of action and cellular targets, structural toxic principle, and possible impact on immune system of corresponding transgenic plants will considerably improve crop protection strategies against harmful plant diseases. This review outlines the current knowledge on different modes of action of AMPs and then argues the waves of AMPs' ectopic expression on transgenic plants' immune system