The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is invaluable for understanding fundamental cellular processes and disease states of relevance to higher eukaryotes. Plant viruses are intracellular parasites that take advantage of resources of the host cell, and a simple eukaryotic cell, such as yeast, can provide all or most of the functions for successful plant virus replication. Thus, yeast has been used ...

Plant sample preparation for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is very time consuming which has limited its application for the diagnosis of plant virus diseases. With the help of microwave irradiation sample preparation time can be drastically reduced to a few hours. Thus, it is now possible to visualize ultrastructural alterations induced by viruses and to clearly identify the virus thro...

Using Soybean mosaic virus as a model system, the rate, magnitude and timing of epidemics caused by non-persistently transmitted, aphid-borne viruses are examined under various field conditions. Emphasis is placed on the behavioural responses of vectors to environmental cues, although all three biotic components (host plant, vector and virus) are considered. Both single and double manipulations...

Makkouk, K.M. and S.G. Kumari. 2006. Molecular Diagnosis of Plant Viruses. Arab J. Pl. Prot. 24: 135-138. Proper virus identification is always the key in developing appropriate practical solutions to manage plant virus diseases. Recent advances in biotechnology and molecular biology have played a significant role in the development of rapid, specific and sensitive diagnostic tests. The use of ...

The emergence of next-generation "deep" sequencing has enabled the study of virus populations with much higher resolutions. This new tool increases the possibility of observing mixed infections caused by combinations of plant viruses, which are likely to occur more frequently than previously thought. The biological impact of co-infecting viruses on their host has yet to be determined and fully ...

The effective size of populations (Ne) determines whether selection or genetic drift is the predominant force shaping their genetic structure and evolution. Despite their high mutation rate and rapid evolution, this parameter is poorly documented experimentally in viruses, particularly plant viruses. All available studies, however, have demonstrated the existence of huge within-host demographic...

As sessile organisms, plants have to accommodate to rapid changes in their surrounding environment. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) act as signaling molecules to transduce biotic and abiotic stimuli into plant stress adaptations. It is established that a respiratory burst oxidase homolog B of Nicotiana benthamiana (NbRBOHB) produces ROS in response to microbe-associated molecular patterns to inhi...