Project description:Stalk borers are major pests for some of the most important crops in the world, such as maize or rice. Plant defense mechanisms against these herbivores have been poorly investigated. The maize´s stalk responds to insect feeding activating defense genes including hormone biosynthetic-related or proteinase inhibitor transcripts. The most outstanding conclusion is that cells in the maize´s stalk undergo cell wall fortification after corn borer tunneling. We performed a gene expression profiling to identify those genes differentially expressed in maize after infestation with the corn borer S. nonagrioides.
