Open AccessDiverse plant viruses: a toolbox for dissection of cellular pathways
Author(s) -
Aayushi Shukla,
Silvia LópezGonzález,
Gesa Hoffmann,
Anders Hafrén
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of experimental botany
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.616
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1460-2431
pISSN - 0022-0957
DOI - 10.1093/jxb/erz122
Subject(s) - pathosystem , biology , effector , plant virus , computational biology , virus , gene silencing , host (biology) , virology , genetics , gene , microbiology and biotechnology
Research in virology has usually focused on one selected host-virus pathosystem to examine the mechanisms underlying a particular disease. However, as exemplified by the mechanistically versatile suppression of antiviral RNA silencing by plant viruses, there may be functionally convergent evolution. Assuming this is a widespread feature, we propose that effector proteins from diverse plant viruses can be a powerful resource for discovering new regulatory mechanisms of distinct cellular pathways. The efficiency of this approach will depend on how deeply and widely the studied pathway is integrated into viral infections. Beyond this, comparative studies using broad virus diversity should increase our global understanding of plant-virus interactions.