Abstract: This invention describes pathogen-inducible promoters which normally drive expression of plant hexose oxidases, especially those which can be isolated from Helianthus annuus and Lactuca sativa, more specifically those promoters which naturally are the regulatory regions driving expression of the hexose oxidase MS59 and WL64, respectively. Also claimed are chimeric constructs where these pathogen-inducible promoters drive expression of antipathogenic proteins or of proteins which can elicit a hypersensitive response.

Abstract: There is provided (a) a process to discharge into an extracellular space of a plant an intracellular osmotin protein that naturally has a vacuolar targeting sequence at its C-terminal end which naturally targets the protein into a plant vacuole; and (b) a recombinant polynucleotide for use in the process. The recombinant polynucleotide includes a promoter that is functional in plants; an open reading frame encoding an intracellular osmotin protein under control of the promoter, the open reading frame having been modified to target the intracellular osmotin protein to an apoplast by creating a translation stop codon in the open reading frame at the 3' end resulting in deletion of the C-terminal amino acids of the intracellular osmotin protein necessary for intracellular osmotin targeting; and a terminator operably linked to the modified open reading frame.

Abstract: Plants are provided with improved resistance against pathogenic fungi. They are genetically transformed with one or more polynucleotides which essentially comprise one or more genes encoding plant and .beta.-1,3-glucanases. Preferred are the intracellular forms of the said hydrolytic enzymes, especially preferred are those forms which are targeted to the apoplastic space of the plant by virtue of the modification of the genes encoding the said enzymes. Particularly preferred are plants exhibiting a relative overexpression of at least one gene encoding a .beta.-1,3-glucanase.