Viroids and most viral satellites have small, noncoding, and highly structured RNA genomes. How they cause disease symptoms without encoding proteins and why they have characteristic secondary structures are two longstanding questions. Recent studies have shown that both viroids and satellites are capable of inducing RNA silencing, suggesting a possible role of this mechanism in the pathology a...

gummy bark disease of sweet orange (citrus sinensis) trees has been reported from a few citrus growing regions of the world. the disease symptoms consist of mild to severe stem pitting and brown gummy flecks in the bark of sweet orange trees on sour orange ( c. aurantium) rootstock, being conspicuous several centimeter above the bud :union: on the trunk. the pits were usually impregnated with b...

Grapevine rupestris stem pitting-associated virus (GRSPaV) is a worldwide-distributed pathogen in grapevines with a high genetic variability. Our study revealed differences in the complexity of GRSPaV population in a single host. A single-variant GRSPaV infection was detected from the SK30 grapevine plant. On the contrary, SK704 grapevine was infected by three different GRSPaV variants. Variant...

In order to analyze the production of small RNA (sRNA) by viroids upon infecting the plants, the tomato plants (Solanum lycopersicum cultivar Rutgers) were inoculated with the variants of Potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd). After 21-days of postinoculation, total RNA was extracted and subjected for deep-sequencing using Illumina HiSeq platform. The primers were trimmed and only 21- to 24-nt lo...

Plants can attenuate the replication of plant viruses and viroids by RNA silencing induced by virus and viroid infection. In higher plants, silencing signals such as small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) produced by RNA silencing can be transported systemically through phloem, so it is anticipated that antiviral siRNA signals produced in a stock would have the potential to attenuate propagation of vi...

Viroids are small (246-401 nucleotides), single-stranded, circular RNA molecules that infect several crop plants and can cause diseases of economic importance. Citrus are the hosts in which the largest number of viroids have been identified. Citrus exocortis viroid (CEVd), the causal agent of citrus exocortis disease, induces considerable losses in citrus crops. Changes in the gene expression p...

Whole-genome comparisons of Vitis vinifera subsp. sativa and V. vinifera subsp. sylvestris are expected to provide a better estimate of the valuable genetic diversity still present in grapevine, and help to reconstruct the evolutionary history of a major crop worldwide. To this aim, the increase of molecular marker density across the grapevine genome is fundamental. Here we describe the SNP dis...

Viroids and viroid-like satellite RNAs from plants, and the human hepatitis delta virus (HDV) RNA share some properties that include small size, circularity and replication through a rolling-circle mechanism. Replication occurs in different cell compartments (nucleus, chloroplast and membrane-associated cytoplasmatic vesicles) and has three steps: RNA polymerization, cleavage and ligation. The ...

TAXONOMY Potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd) is the type species of the genus Posipiviroid, family Pospiviroidae. An absence of hammerhead ribozymes and the presence of a 'central conserved region' distinguish PSTVd and related viroids from members of a second viroid family, the Avsunviroidae. PHYSICAL PROPERTIES Viroids are small, unencapsidated, circular, single-stranded RNA molecules which...