The cell snatchers - Understanding plant manipulation by geminiviruses
Februar 2024
- Datum: 14.02.2024
- Uhrzeit: 14:00 - 15:30
- Vortragende(r): Rosa Luzano-Duran
- University of Tuebingen, GER
- Ort: Zentralgebäude
- Raum: Hörsaal
- Gastgeber: Marco Incarbone
Abstract
Viruses, as
obligate intracellular parasites, need to subvert the host cell in order to
enable viral replication and spread. Due to strict coding limitations, viruses
commonly produce a reduced number of proteins; this is the case of
geminiviruses, plant DNA viruses that are believed to contain only 4-8
translated open reading frames in their circular single-stranded genome.
Strikingly, despite their limited armoury, geminiviruses are able to
successfully infect host plants while dramatically altering plant development
and physiology, ultimately causing devastating losses to crops worldwide. In
our group, we aim to understand how geminiviruses manipulate the plant cell and
lead to disease, for which we use a combination of approaches, including
molecular biology, cell biology, and genetics. By studying individual viral
proteins, our results have shed light onto the molecular mechanisms underlying
the replication of viral DNA, plant anti-viral defence and geminiviral
counter-defence, and symptom development; in addition, we are interested in the
identification of novel virulence strategies potentially employed by
geminiviruses to maximize their coding capacity and their impact on the host
cell.
References
Wang L, Tan H, Medina-Puche L, Wu M, Garnelo Gomez B, Gao M, Shi C, Jimenez-Gongora T, Fan P, Ding X, Zhang D, Ding Y, Rosas-Diaz T, Liu Y, Aguilar E, Fu X, Lozano-Durán R (2022). Combinatorial interactions between viral proteins expand the potential functional landscape of the tomato yellow leaf curl proteome. PLoS Pathog. 18;18:e1010909
Wu M, Wei H, Tan H, Pan SJ, Liu Q, Bejarano ER, Lozano-Durán R (2021). Plant DNA polymerases α and δ mediate replication of geminiviruses. Nat Commun, 13;12:2780. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-23013-2.
Medina-Puche L, Tan H, Dogra V, Wu M, Rosas-Diaz T, Wang L, Ding X, Zhang D, Fu X, Kim C, Lozano-Duran R (2020). A defence pathway linking plasma membrane and chloroplasts co-opted by pathogens. Cell, 3;182(5):1109-1124.