Application of Bioinformatics in the Plant Pathology Research

Bioinformatics is the study of molecular biological data using techniques of computer sciences and statistical analysis to solve the biological problem. The main task of bioinformatics is to store, process and analyse the huge biological data obtained from the experimental research. Similarly, plant pathology involves the study of the basis of plant disease resistance, identification of the pathogens, disease aetiology, disease cycles, genetics of pathology and management of plant diseases. Therefore, to understand the molecular mechanism of pathogenesis of plant pathogens is a major aspect of plant biology. So various bioinformatics-based methods and tools have been developed for comparative genomic analysis, evolutionary analysis, genome-wide association study (GWAS), molecular modelling methods and so on. The specific analysis includes illustrating the mechanism behind the plant-pathogen interaction and predictions of the accurate location of the disease-causing genes on the genome that lead to the development of the disease-free transgenic plant. Comparative genomics of plant pathogens of an emerging crop is one of the effective approaches of bioinformatics-based analysis. Similarly, the development of unique user-friendly bioinformatics database resources of different aspects of plant pathology will facilitate the sharing of information among the scientific communities and will ultimately be beneficial to plant breeders and farmers. This chapter focuses on the recent challenges and opportunities in plant pathology research by narrating the literature and how the bioinformatics methods have been used to solve the problems.