Résumé
Plants interact with other plants through specialized metabolites also refered to asallelochemicals. Some of these allelochemicals can induce deleterious effects into neighboringplants (a process known as allelopathy), while others can have positive effects. Although thenegative impacts of allelochemicals have been widely studied, we know far less about howpositive allelochemicals function in interspecific plant-plant interactions. By presentingunpublished data, we unveil the significant role of a major class of maize root-exudedallelochemicals in modulating gene expression and disease severity in neighboring rice plantsthrough a chromatin-based regulatory mechanism.At the same time, positive interactions are also widespread in intraspecifc plant mixtures,and recent evidence points toward a role for an allelochemical-independent mechanismremaining unknown. By leveraging a multidisciplinary approach that combines forwardgenetics, metabolomics, transcriptomics and reverse genetics, our team endeavors to unravelthe genes and the molecular mechanisms governing intraspecific plant-plant interactions inhexaploid wheat, particularly those bolstering plant immunity against prominent infectiousthreats. On the long-term, we hope to understand how plants recognize their intraspecificneighbors at the molecular level, which could lead to the development of new biosolutions andthe optimization of mixtures at the field to foster agroecological crop farming.