Introductory remarks

Plants undergo a series of dynamic changes at a cellular level in response to insect attacks. However, it is very perplexing to understand and capture those substantial changes occurring at a minuscule scale. On the other hand, a deep understanding of molecular plant-insect interactions would aid in unlocking the natural potential of plants to develop innovative pest management strategies using modern biotechnological approaches. With the advancement in interdisciplinary approaches in plant biology, omics approaches provide essential and timely resources to understand the intricacies occurring during plant-insect interactions. Omics approaches utilize high throughput technologies to study different biological molecules at DNA, RNA, protein, and metabolite levels enabling a comprehensive analysis of the dynamic changes occurring at the cellular level during plant-insect interactions. Although omics technologies have allowed researchers to identify the key molecular mechanisms underlying plant-insect interactions, they are still not being widely used in entomology. There are several unexplored avenues in plant-insect interactions which can be explored using omics technologies. Our symposium will cover the broad range of studies utilizing transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics approaches to answer complex research questions related to plant resistance mechanisms against insects and insect’s counter defense to plants. Broadly, the speakers will discuss their research related to plant defense mechanisms against insects, insect physiology and incorporation of omics in accelerating the development of crop protection solutions.  Utilizing omics has great potential to identify candidate targets for plant defenses which can contribute to the development of sustainable crop protection strategies.