H. Ohta, K. Shida, Y.-L. Peng, I. Furusawa, et al., "A lipoxygenase pathway is activated in rice after infection with the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe grisea," Plant Physiology, 97:94-8, 1991. Hiroyuki Ohta (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan):
"When plants are infected with a pathogen, they show a series of quick protective responses. A well-known response to fungal attack is production of phytoalexins, which have inhibitory effects on the growth of the fungus. When fungi infect plants, the phytoalexins are coincidentally accumulated in the infected cells, and then suppress the invaders. One of the important points to understand in this resistance mechanism is when and how the phytoalexins are produced in the plant cells. Recently, several metabolites of unsaturated fatty acids have been isolated as antifungal substances from plants, and thus, the potentially important role of lipoxygenase and subsequent metabolic pathway (lipoxygenase pathway) in producing such compounds has increased the interest...