Plant resistance to pathogens is a very complicated bio-phenomenon. Today，people realize that both signal transduction pathways and many genes are involved in the resistant processes of plants. The understanding of resistant molecular mechanism is based mostly on the large number of experimental results using Arabidopsis as research material. These developments occurred as a result of improvements in research methods and techniques. Research using Arabidopsis thaliana as a model plant has enhanced our understanding of the molecular mechanism of plant resistance to pathogens. The use of Arabidopsis as a model plant has become ubiquitous, allowing efficient and readily-reproducible experimental results. In this paper we review the discovery and cloning process of resistant genes, the research of resistant signal transduction and the recent transcription regulation study in resistant genes. The role of Arabidopsis as a research model plant in the study of genetic and molecular mechanisms of plant resistance to pathogens are discussed.
