Breaking Through to the Other Side: How Plant Viruses Modify Plasmodesmata and the Plant Cell Wall.
Burch-Smith TM
Plant Signaling
Every tomato plant that wilts from mosaic virus, every squash stunted by a streak disease, loses its fight partly because viruses exploit microscopic tunnels in cell walls — and scientists are now mapping those tunnels well enough to design plants that can shut the doors.
Plant cells are connected by microscopic tunnels in their walls, like tiny hallways between rooms. Viruses that infect plants have figured out how to pick the locks on these hallways and use them to travel through the entire plant. Researchers are studying exactly how viruses do this, hoping to breed or engineer plants that can keep those hallways closed to intruders.
Key Findings
Plant viruses rely on plasmodesmata — channels through cell walls — as their primary route for spreading from cell to cell and reaching the plant's vascular system for systemic infection.
Plasmodesmata are integral components of the plant cell wall, not just membrane structures, meaning viral manipulation of these channels also disrupts cell wall function and integrity.
Plasmodesmata are identified as promising engineering targets for developing crops with broad-spectrum pathogen resistance, beyond just viral threats.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Plant viruses hijack tiny channels in cell walls called plasmodesmata to spread through plants. Understanding how they do this could lead to crops engineered to block viral movement before infections take hold.
Abstract Preview
Viruses are obligate intracellular parasites that rely on their hosts for the cellular machinery necessary for their replication and transmission to new hosts. Viruses are therefore invaluable for ...
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