Infection, Replication, and Expression of Plant Viruses in Filamentous Fungi
The recent demonstration that the plant virus tobacco mosaic virus replicates and expresses in the plant pathogenic fungus Colletotrichum spp. provides opportunities for examining fundamental aspects of the biology of plant pathogenic fungi and of their i
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Infection, Replication, and Expression of Plant Viruses in Filamentous Fungi Tiziana Mascia and Donato Gallitelli
Abstract
The recent demonstration that the plant virus tobacco mosaic virus replicates and expresses in the plant pathogenic fungus Colletotrichum spp. provides opportunities for examining fundamental aspects of the biology of plant pathogenic fungi and of their interaction with the host. The small genome size and the ability in colonizing systemically the host have implemented the use of plant viruses to carry segments of host genes that can then promote the silencing of the RNAs expressed from the corresponding endogenous genes in a process called virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS). This chapter presents support for the view that VIGS with a direct transfection of a plant virus vector in fungal cells can be used for functional genomics also in fungi that activate an antiviral defense based on RNA interference (RNAi). The silencing of genes in filamentous fungi is technically more problematic and labor intensive than in plants, especially if transgenic plants need to be generated first. Compared to current strategies to employ RNAi to investigate the basis of fungal pathogenesis, the VIGS approach described here is more direct, easy to do, and feasible. Future perspectives of both basic and practical aspects of this technology are discussed. Keywords
Tobacco mosaic virus • Plant pathogenic fungi • VIGS
T. Mascia (*) • D. Gallitelli Dipartimento di Scienze del Suolo della Pianta e degli Alimenti, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, Via Amendola 165/A, 70126, Bari, Italy Istituto del CNR per la Protezione Sostenibile delle Piante, Unità Operativa di Supporto di Bari, Via Amendola 165/A, 70126, Bari, Italy e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
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Introduction
The notion that soil-inhabiting fungi can vector plant viruses dates back from 1958 with the association of species of the chytrid genus Olpidium with the lettuce big-vein disease (Fry 1958; Grogan et al. 1958). There are currently five
© Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016 R.K. Gaur et al. (eds.), Plant Viruses: Evolution and Management, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-1406-2_3
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species of zoosporic organisms that are known vectors of plant viruses (Rochon et al. 2004), and there are two modes of transmission recognized in virus–fungal vector relationships, denoted in vitro and in vivo transmission (Campbell 1996). In vitro transmission occurs when virus particles are adsorbed from soil onto the surface of zoospore membrane being able to enter zoospore cytoplasm only when the flagellum is withdrawn in. Thus, in this type of transmission, which is associated mostly to viruses with spherical particles, virions are not present in the spores but enter the plant root cells following zoospore encystment, through a mechanism that is not known. The so-called in vivo transmission is characteristic of viruses with rod-shaped particles, which are retained inside resting spores or zoo
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