Human activity is causing new encounters between viruses and plants. Anthropogenic interventions include changing land use, decreasing biodiversity, trade, the introduction of new plant and vector species to native landscapes, and changing atmospheric and climatic conditions. The discovery of thousands of new viruses, especially those associated with healthy-appearing native plants, is shifting...

Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved process that recycles damaged or unwanted cellular components, and has been linked to plant immunity. However, how autophagy contributes to plant immunity is unknown. Here we reported that the plant autophagic machinery targets the virulence factor βC1 of Cotton leaf curl Multan virus (CLCuMuV) for degradation through its interaction with the key autopha...

The diversity of viruses associated with non-cultivated plants was assessed from plant samples collected in the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve of northeastern Oklahoma, USA. The samples were processed to determine the sequences of nucleic acids extracted from the virus-like particle fraction of plant homogenates. Sequences from 95 specimens of 52 plant species included those of probable origin from...

Viruses have generally been studied either as disease-causing infectious agents that have a negative impact on the host (most eukaryote-infecting viruses), or as tools for molecular biology (especially bacteria-infecting viruses, or phage). Virus ecology looks at the more complex issues of virus-host-environment interactions. For plant viruses this includes studies of plant virus biodiversity, ...

BACKGROUND Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) is a potent initiator of gene silencing in a diverse group of organisms that includes plants, Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila and mammals. We have previously shown and patented that mechanical inoculation of in vitro-transcribed dsRNA derived from viral sequences specifically prevents virus infection in plants. The approach required the in vitro synthes...

Circulative transmission of viruses in the Luteoviridae, such as cereal yellow dwarf virus (CYDV), requires a series of precisely orchestrated interactions between virus, plant, and aphid proteins. Natural selection has favored these viruses to be retained in the phloem to facilitate acquisition and transmission by aphids. We show that treatment of infected oat tissue homogenate with sodium sul...

Fast accumulation of sequencing data on plant virus genomes and plant transcriptomes demands periodic re-evaluation of current views on the genome evolution of viruses. Here, we substantiate and further detail our previously mostly speculative model on the origin and evolution of triple gene block (TGB) encoding plant virus movement proteins TGB1, TGB2, and TGB3. Recent experimental data on fun...

Vector infection by some animal-infecting parasites results in altered feeding that enhances transmission. Modification of vector behavior is of broad adaptive significance, as parasite fitness relies on passage to a new host, and vector feeding is nearly always essential for transmission. Although several plant viruses infect their insect vectors, we have shown that vector infection by a plant...

Plant steroid hormones, brassinosteroids (BRs), play essential roles in plant growth, development and stress responses. However, mechanisms by which BRs interfere with plant resistance to virus remain largely unclear. In this study, we used pharmacological and genetic approaches in combination with infection experiments to investigate the role of BRs in plant defense against Tobacco Mosaic Viru...