Nematode-induced endoreduplication in plant host cells: why and how?

Plant-parasitic root-knot and cyst nematodes have acquired the ability to induce remarkable changes in host cells during the formation of feeding sites. Root-knot nematodes induce several multinucleate giant cells inside a gall whereas cyst nematodes provoke the formation of a multinucleate syncytium. Both strategies impinge on the deregulation of the cell cycle, involving a major role for endoreduplication. This review will first describe the current knowledge on the control of normal and aberrant cell cycles. Thereafter, we will focus on the role of both cell-cycle routes in the transformation process of root cells into large and highly differentiated feeding sites as induced by the phytoparasitic root-knot and cyst nematodes.