Pathogen-Responsive cis-Elements

Different types of pathogen-responsive cis-elements have been identified from the promoters of plant genes involved in host pathogen interactions. These cis-elements are directly controlled either by pathogen effectors or by plant regulatory proteins and activate or suppress gene expression after pathogen invasion. These elements provide the basis for further studies of defense signal transduction and the molecular mechanisms of defense responses. These elements also represent a valuable resource that can be used to design synthetic promoters for specifically regulating target genes in plant pathogen interactions for crop improvement.