Plant Resistance to Infection by Viruses

Valérie Nicaise, INRA Université Bordeaux 2, Villenave d'Ornon, France
Frédéric Revers, INRA Université Bordeaux 2, Villenave d'Ornon, France

Published online: September 2007

DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0000757.pub2

Damages caused by viruses have a major economic and agronomic impact in agriculture. To counter these attacks, plants have developed efficient defence mechanisms that prevent or limit viral infection. Recently, important advances in our understanding of the molecular nature and mechanisms associated with recessive or dominant natural virus resistance genes have been made, as well as concerning the general antiviral defence system based on ribonucleic acid (RNA) silencing.

Keywords: natural and engineered resistances; translation initiation factors; R genes; RNA silencing

Figure 1. Position of amino acids related to natural resistances to viruses in the eIF4E predicted 3D structure. Coloured circles represent mutations specific to resistant genotypes for different pathosystems: LMV-lettuce (red), TEV- and PVY-pepper (orange), PSbMV-pea (light blue), TEV- and PVY-tomato (pink), BaMMV- and BaYMV-barley (green) and MNSV-melon (dark blue). A cap analogue is represented in red. The yellow molecule corresponds to a partial fragment of eIF4G. The dashed ellipse represents a resistance-related domain (loop 1 and loop 2). The structure was predicted by modelling from the 3D structure of the mouse eIF4E with the Swiss-PdbViewer program.
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Related Sub-Topics:

Viruses Infecting Plants | RNA Structure and Function | Posttranscriptional Modification | Plant Disease
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Article Title: Plant Resistance to Infection by Viruses
 
How to Cite close
Nicaise, Valérie, and Revers, Frédéric(Sep 2007) Plant Resistance to Infection by Viruses. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0000757.pub2]