| Summary: | <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Plants have evolved a complicated resistance system and exhibit a variety of defense patterns in response to different attackers. Previous studies have shown that responses of plants to chewing insects and phloem-feeding insects are significantly different. Less is known, however, regarding molecular responses to leafminer insects. To investigate plant transcriptome response to leafminers, we selected the leafminer <it>Liriomyza huidobrensis</it>, which has a special feeding pattern more similar to pathogen damage than that of chewing insects, as a model insect, and <it>Arabidopsis thaliana</it> as a response plant.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We first investigated local and systemic responses of <it>A. thaliana</it> to leafminer feeding using an Affymetrix ATH1 genome array. Genes related to metabolic processes and stimulus responses were highly regulated. Most systemically-induced genes formed a subset of the local response genes. We then downloaded gene expression data from online databases and used hierarchical clustering to explore relationships among gene expression patterns in <it>A. thaliana</it> damaged by different attackers.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our results demonstrate that plant response patterns are strongly coupled to damage patterns of attackers.</p>
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