Heather N. Kingdom

TL;DR: Phytoplasma can increase fecundity and survival of insect vectors, and may influence flight behaviour and plant host preference of their insect hosts, but generally do not negatively affect the fitness of their major insect vectors.

TL;DR: It is reported that the secreted AY-WB protein 11 (SAP11) effector modulates plant defense responses to the advantage of the Ay-WB insect vector Macrosteles quadrilineatus, demonstrating that pathogen effectors can reach beyond the pathogen–host interface to modulate a third organism in the biological interaction.

TL;DR: This review shows that substantial progress has been made with the identification of phytoplasma effectors that alter flower development, induce witches' broom, affect leaf shape, and modify plant-insect interactions, and it is expected that further research on the functional characterization of phalangere effectors will generate new knowledge that is relevant to fundamental aspects of plant sciences and entomology, and for agriculture by improving yields of crops affected by phy toplasma diseases.

TL;DR: In this article, the complete genome of AY-WB is sequenced and can be used to study the phytoplasma effect on insect-plant interactions at the molecular level.

TL;DR: The model plant A. thaliana has allowed rapid progress with understanding how phy toplasma effectors alter plant development and plant-insect interactions, and represents an experimental pathosystem to enable research into phytoplasma virulence.