scholarly journals Inhibition of RNA silencing by the coat protein of Pelargonium flower break virus: distinctions from closely related suppressors

2009 ◽  
Vol 90 (2) ◽  
pp. 519-525 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Martínez-Turiño ◽  
Carmen Hernández

Viral-derived double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) activate RNA silencing, generating small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) which are incorporated into an RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) that promotes homology-dependent degradation of cognate RNAs. To counteract this, plant viruses express RNA silencing suppressors. Here, we show that the coat protein (CP) of Pelargonium flower break virus (PFBV), a member of the genus Carmovirus, is able to efficiently inhibit RNA silencing. Interestingly, PFBV CP blocked both sense RNA- and dsRNA-triggered RNA silencing and did not preclude generation of siRNAs, which is in contrast with the abilities that have been reported for other carmoviral CPs. We have also found that PFBV CP can bind siRNAs and that this ability correlates with silencing suppression activity and enhancement of potato virus X pathogenicity. Collectively, the results indicate that PFBV CP inhibits RNA silencing by sequestering siRNAs and preventing their incorporation into a RISC, thus behaving similarly to unrelated viral suppressors but dissimilarly to orthologous ones.

2012 ◽  
Vol 93 (8) ◽  
pp. 1841-1850 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ida Bagus Andika ◽  
Hideki Kondo ◽  
Masamichi Nishiguchi ◽  
Tetsuo Tamada

Many plant viruses encode proteins that suppress RNA silencing, but little is known about the activity of silencing suppressors in roots. This study examined differences in the silencing suppression activity of different viruses in leaves and roots of Nicotiana benthamiana plants. Infection by tobacco mosaic virus, potato virus Y and cucumber mosaic virus but not potato virus X (PVX) resulted in strong silencing suppression activity of a transgene in both leaves and roots, whereas infection by beet necrotic yellow vein virus (BNYVV) and tobacco rattle virus (TRV) showed transgene silencing suppression in roots but not in leaves. For most viruses tested, viral negative-strand RNA accumulated at a very low level in roots, compared with considerable levels of positive-strand genomic RNA. Co-inoculation of leaves with PVX and either BNYVV or TRV produced an increase in PVX negative-strand RNA and subgenomic RNA (sgRNA) accumulation in roots. The cysteine-rich proteins (CRPs) BNYVV p14 and TRV 16K showed weak silencing suppression activity in leaves. However, when either of these CRPs was expressed from a PVX vector, there was an enhancement of PVX negative-strand RNA and sgRNA accumulation in roots compared with PVX alone. Such enhancement of PVX sgRNAs was also observed by expression of CRPs of other viruses and the well-known suppressors HC-Pro and p19 but not of the potato mop-top virus p8 CRP. These results indicate that BNYVV- and TRV-encoded CRPs suppress RNA silencing more efficiently in roots than in leaves.


2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Munir Mawassi ◽  
Valerian Dolja

RNA silencing is a defense mechanism that functions against virus infection and involves sequence-specific degradation of viral RNA. Diverse RNA and DNA viruses of plants encode RNA silencing suppressors (RSSs), which, in addition to their role in viral counterdefense, were implicated in the efficient accumulation of viral RNAs, virus transport, pathogenesis, and determination of the virus host range. Despite rapidly growing understanding of the mechanisms of RNA silencing suppression, systematic analysis of the roles played by diverse RSSs in virus biology and pathology is yet to be completed. Our research was aimed at conducting such analysis for two grapevine viruses, Grapevine virus A (GVA) and Grapevine leafroll-associated virus-2 (GLRaV- 2). Our major achievements on the previous cycle of BARD funding are as follows. 1. GVA and GLRaV-2 were engineered into efficient gene expression and silencing vectors for grapevine. The efficient techniques for grapevine infection resulting in systemic expression or silencing of the recombinant genes were developed. Therefore, GVA and GLRaV-2 were rendered into powerful tools of grapevine virology and functional genomics. 2. The GVA and GLRaV-2 RSSs, p10 and p24, respectively, were identified, and their roles in viral pathogenesis were determined. In particular, we found that p10 functions in suppression and pathogenesis are genetically separable. 3. We revealed that p10 is a self-interactive protein that is targeted to the nucleus. In contrast, p24 mechanism involves binding small interfering RNAs in the cytoplasm. We have also demonstrated that p10 is relatively weak, whereas p24 is extremely strong enhancer of the viral agroinfection. 4. We found that, in addition to the dedicated RSSs, GVA and GLRaV-2 counterdefenses involve ORF1 product and leader proteases, respectively. 5. We have teamed up with Dr. Koonin and Dr. Falnes groups to study the evolution and function of the AlkB domain presents in GVA and many other plant viruses. It was demonstrated that viral AlkBs are RNA-specific demethylases thus providing critical support for the biological relevance of the novel process of AlkB-mediated RNA repair. 


2006 ◽  
Vol 87 (10) ◽  
pp. 3103-3112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara Lico ◽  
Floriana Capuano ◽  
Giovanni Renzone ◽  
Marcello Donini ◽  
Carla Marusic ◽  
...  

The potexvirus Potato virus X (PVX) can be modified genetically to generate chimeric virus particles (CVPs) carrying heterologous peptides fused to coat protein (CP) subunits. A spontaneous PVX mutant expressing a truncated, but functional, form of the CP has been isolated. With the aim of exploiting this virus to display peptides useful for vaccine formulations, two novel viral expression vectors based on pPVX201 (bearing the wild-type PVX genome) were constructed encoding the truncated CP. Both vectors were able to produce infectious virus particles in planta and were used to insert a panel of sequences encoding peptides of biopharmaceutical interest as N-terminal fusions to the truncated cp gene. The analysis of infection progression induced by the different constructs enabled identification of two important structural features of the fused peptide, namely tryptophan content and isoelectric point, critically affecting the formation of PVX CVPs and virus movement through the plant. These results are discussed in view of the rising interest in engineered plant viruses for development of peptide-based epitope vaccines.


2014 ◽  
Vol 89 (4) ◽  
pp. 2090-2103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Aguilar ◽  
David Almendral ◽  
Lucía Allende ◽  
Remedios Pacheco ◽  
Bong Nam Chung ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTMost plant viruses counter the RNA silencing-based antiviral defense by expressing viral suppressors of RNA silencing (VSRs). In this sense, VSRs may be regarded as virulence effectors that can be recognized by the host as avirulence (avr) factors to induceR-mediated resistance. We made use ofAgrobacterium-mediated transient coexpression of VSRs in combination withPotato virus X(PVX) to recapitulate in local tissues the systemic necrosis (SN) caused by PVX-potyvirus synergistic infections inNicotiana benthamiana. The hypersensitive response (HR)-like response was associated with an enhanced accumulation of PVX subgenomic RNAs. We further show that expression of P25, the VSR of PVX, in the presence of VSR from different viruses elicited an HR-like response inNicotianaspp. Furthermore, the expression of P25 by aPlum pox virus(PPV) vector was sufficient to induce an increase of PPV pathogenicity that led to necrotic mottling. A frameshift mutation in the P25 open reading frame (ORF) of PVX did not lead to necrosis when coexpressed with VSRs. These findings indicate that P25 is the main PVX determinant involved in eliciting a systemic HR-like response in PVX-associated synergisms. Moreover, we show that silencing ofSGT1andRAR1attenuated cell death in both PVX-potyvirus synergistic infection and the HR-like response elicited by P25. Our study underscores that P25 variants that have impaired ability to suppress RNA silencing cannot act as elicitors when synergized by the presence of other VSRs. These findings highlight the importance of RNA silencing suppression activity in the HR-like response elicited by VSRs in certain hosts.IMPORTANCEThe work presented here describes how the activity of the PVX suppressor P25 elicits an HR-like response inNicotianaspp. when overexpressed with other VSR proteins. This finding suggests that the SN response caused by PVX-associated synergisms is a delayed immune response triggered by P25, once it reaches a threshold level by the action of other VSRs. Moreover, this work supports the contention that the silencing suppressor activity of PVX P25 protein is a prerequisite for HR elicitation. We propose that unidentified avr determinants could be involved in other cases of viral synergisms in which heterologous “helper” viruses encoding strong VSRs exacerbate the accumulation of the avr-encoding virus.


2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (9) ◽  
pp. 1004-1015 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Carmen Cañizares ◽  
Rosa Lozano-Durán ◽  
Tomás Canto ◽  
Eduardo R. Bejarano ◽  
David M. Bisaro ◽  
...  

In plants, post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) is a sequence-specific mechanism of RNA degradation induced by double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), which is processed into small interfering RNAs (siRNAs). siRNAs are methylated and, thereby, stabilized by the activity of the S-adenosylmethionine-dependent RNA methyltransferase HEN1. PTGS is amplified by host-encoded RNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RDR), which generate dsRNA that is processed into secondary siRNAs. To counteract this RNA silencing-mediated response of the host, plant viruses express proteins with silencing suppression activity. Here, we report that the coat protein (CP) of crinivirus (family Closteroviridae, genus Crinivirus) Tomato chlorosis virus, a known suppressor of silencing, interacts with S-adenosylhomocysteine hydrolase (SAHH), a plant protein essential for sustaining the methyl cycle and S-adenosylmethionine-dependent methyltransferase activity. Our results show that, by contributing to an increased accumulation of secondary siRNAs generated by the action of RDR6, SAHH enhances local RNA silencing. Although downregulation of SAHH prevents local silencing, it enhances the spread of systemic silencing. Our results also show that SAHH is important in the suppression of local RNA silencing not only by the crinivirus Tomato chlorosis virus CP but also by the multifunctional helper component-proteinase of the potyvirus Potato virus Y.


2003 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 511-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng Qu ◽  
Tao Ren ◽  
T. Jack Morris

ABSTRACT Posttranscriptional gene silencing (PTGS), or RNA silencing, is a sequence-specific RNA degradation process that targets foreign RNA, including viral and transposon RNA for destruction. Several RNA plant viruses have been shown to encode suppressors of PTGS in order to survive this host defense. We report here that the coat protein (CP) of Turnip crinkle virus (TCV) strongly suppresses PTGS. The Agrobacterium infiltration system was used to demonstrate that TCV CP suppressed the local PTGS as strongly as several previously reported virus-coded suppressors and that the action of TCV CP eliminated the small interfering RNAs associated with PTGS. We have also shown that the TCV CP must be present at the time of silencing initiation to be an effective suppressor. TCV CP was able to suppress PTGS induced by sense, antisense, and double-stranded RNAs, and it prevented systemic silencing. These data suggest that TCV CP functions to suppress RNA silencing at an early initiation step, likely by interfering the function of the Dicer-like RNase in plants.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 92-96
Author(s):  
Qudsia Nosheen ◽  
Shahid Hameed ◽  
Sardar M. Mughal ◽  
Muhammad F. Abbas

Potato virus X (PVX) is among top ten most economically damaging plant viruses in the world and its increasing incidence is getting an alarming situation in potato crop of Pakistan. During two consecutive years (2010-11 and 2011-12), the incidence of PVX was recorded in potato fields at Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Faisalabad and Sahiwal. The samples were collected and subjected to Double Antibody Sandwiched (DAS) Enzyme Linked Immunosorbant Assay (ELISA) and average incidence of PVX was determined about 16.86% (OD405nm 1.38) during 2010-11 and 27.10% (OD405nm 0.479) in 2011-12. The infectivity of the virus was assayed through mechanical inoculation on Nicotiana tabacum cv. Samsun, N. rustica, Datura stramonium, Chenopodium sp. Gomphrena and Capsicum annuum producing local lesion, mosaic and mottling symptoms. Coat protein (CP) gene specific sense and antisense primer successfully amplified a 750bp fragments through Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) assay.


2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shahinez Garcia ◽  
Christophe Himber ◽  
Olivier Voinnet

By transiently expressing viral suppressors of RNA silencing (VSRs) in combination with GFP silencing-inducing constructs in leaves of Nicotiana benthamiana line 16c, Hamilton et al. (2002) could establish a positive correlation between the production of 24nt GFP small interfering (si)RNAs in infiltrated leaves and the systemic onset of GFP silencing in remote tissues. In the context of GFP silencing inducers based on replicating Potato virus X (PVX), the P25 protein of PVX was found to specifically inhibit the local accumulation of 24nt GFP siRNAs. In the original paper, there were background pixel pattern duplications in the figure reporting the P25 experiments. We have now repeated these experiments with the original clones and the results presented here confirm those reported in the original paper.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
CMR Varanda ◽  
P Materatski ◽  
MD Campos ◽  
MIE Clara ◽  
G Nolasco ◽  
...  

AbstractRNA silencing is an important defense mechanism in plants, yet several plant viruses encode proteins that suppress it. Here the genome of Olive mild mosaic virus (OMMV) was screened for silencing suppressors using a green fluorescent based transient suppression assay. The full OMMV cDNA and 5 different OMMV open reading frames (ORFs) were cloned into Gateway binary destination vector pK7WG2, transformed into Agrobacterium tumefaciens C58C1 and agroinfiltrated into Nicotiana benthamiana 16C plants. Among all ORFs tested, CP and p6 showed suppressor activity, with CP showing a significant higher activity when compared to p6, yet lower than that of the full OMMV. This suggests that OMMV silencing suppression results from a complementary action of both CP and p6.Such discovery led to the use of those viral suppressors in the development of OMMV resistant plants through pathogen-derived resistance (PDR) based on RNA silencing. Two hairpin constructs targeting each suppressor were agroinfiltrated in N. benthamiana plants which were then inoculated with OMMV RNA. When silencing of both suppressors was achieved, a highly significant reduction in viral accumulation and symptom attenuation was observed as compared to that seen when each construct was used alone, and to the respective controls, thus showing clear effectiveness against OMMV infection. Data here obtained indicate that the use of both OMMV viral suppressors as transgenes is a very efficient and promising approach to obtain plants resistant to OMMV.ImportanceOMMV silencing suppressors were determined. Among all ORFs tested, CP and p6 showed suppressor activity, with CP showing a significant higher activity when compared to p6, yet lower than that of the full OMMV, suggesting a complementary action of both CP and p6 in silencing suppression.This is the first time that a silencing suppressor was found in a necrovirus and that two independent proteins act as silencing suppressors in a member of the Tombusviridae family.When silencing of both suppressors was achieved, a highly significant reduction in viral accumulation and symptom attenuation was observed as compared to that seen when each was used alone, thus showing clear effectiveness against OMMV infection. A high percentage of resistant plants was obtained (60%), indicating that the use of both OMMV viral suppressors as transgenes is a very efficient and promising approach to obtain plants resistant to OMMV.


2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (9) ◽  
pp. 933-943 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajita A. Karran ◽  
Hélène Sanfaçon

RNA silencing regulates plant gene expression and antiviral defenses and functions by cleaving target RNAs or repressing translation. As a counter defense, many plant viruses encode suppressor proteins that sequester small RNAs or inactivate Argonaute (AGO) proteins. All known plant virus silencing suppressor activities eventually inhibit the degradation of target mRNAs. Using a transiently expressed green fluorescent protein (GFP) reporter gene, we show that Tomato ringspot virus (ToRSV) coat protein (CP) is a suppressor of RNA silencing that enhances GFP expression but does not prevent the degradation of the GFP mRNA or the accumulation of GFP small interfering RNAs (siRNAs). Coexpression of the CP with GFP resulted in increased association of residual GFP mRNAs with polysome fractions and reduced association of GFP siRNAs with monosome fractions. AGO1 was co-immunoprecipitated with the CP and CP expression destabilized AGO1. A WG motif within the CP was critical for the enhanced GFP expression, AGO1 interaction, and AGO1 destabilization, suggesting that the ToRSV CP acts as an AGO-hook protein and competes for AGO binding with a plant cellular GW/WG protein involved in translation repression.


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