Inducing plant resistance to pathogens using Beneficial microorganisms (BMO) or their derivatives is a promising strategy for sustainable agriculture. It is partly based on activation of plant immune responses. These methods are efficient to control several fungal-associated diseases but the mechanisms involved are not fully understood. Our researches aim at identifying molecular, biochemical and cellular events involved in BMO-induced resistance towards plant pathogens. Our study encompass several fungal diseases (downy mildew, grey rot and botryospheria dieback) on several plant models (thale crest, tomato, rapeseed and grapevine).

Our key biological questions

• What are the BMOs traits involved in plant colonization and immunity activation?
• Which signaling pathways regulate BMO-induced resistance?
• Can we secure BMO-induced resistance specific markers (genes, proteins or metabolites)?
• Is there a trade-off between growth and BMO-induce resistance?

Our key results

We isolated phyllospheric and rhizospheric bacteria able to induce systemic resistance (Trotel-Aziz et al. 2008).

We identified bacterial traits (MAMPs) involved in beneficial microbes recognition (Verhagen et al. 2010 ; Sanchez et al. 2012…).

We identified beneficial bacteria involved able to trigger both a local immune response and a priming state (Verhagen et al. 2011 ; Gruau et al. 2015).

Induce-resistance toward B. cinerea includes priming of carbon metabolism (Miotto-Vilanova et al. 2016).

Induce systemic resistance towards B. cinerea is associated with secondary metabolism activation and reduced cell death (Gruau et al. 2015 ; Aziz et al. 2016).