Plants can respond to insect oviposition, but little is known about which responses directly target the insect eggs and how. Here, we reveal a mechanism by which the bittersweet nightshade Solanum dulcamara kills the eggs of a generalist noctuid herbivore. The plant responded at the site of oviposition by Spodoptera exigua with formation of neoplasms and chlorotic tissue, accumulation of reactive oxygen species and induction of defence genes and proteins. Transcriptome analysis revealed that these responses were reflected in the transcriptional reprogramming of the egg-laden leaf. The plant-mediated egg mortality on S. dulcamara was not present on a genotype lacking chlorotic leaf tissue at the oviposition sites on which the eggs are exposed to less hydrogen peroxide. As exposure to hydrogen peroxide increased egg mortality, while catalase supplementation prevented the plants from killing the eggs, our results suggest that reactive oxygen species formation directly acts as an ovicidal plant response of S. dulcamara.
Keywords: ROS; egg-killing; herbivory; hypersensitive response; induced plant defence; microarray; phytohormones; plant-insect interactions.
© 2017 The Authors Plant, Cell & Environment Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.