Executive Summary : | Tomato is widely grown in every country of the world in outdoor fields, greenhouses, and net houses. In 2021, about 21.0 million metric tons of tomato production recorded in India. In recent disease outbreaks of tomato, infection of Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), Groundnut bud necrosis virus (GBNV), Tomato chlorosis virus (ToCV), Tomato mosaic virus (ToMV), Pepper mottle virus (PepMoV), Pepino mosaic virus (PepMV), Tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV), and Potato Virus Y (PVY) have been reported. Of which, ToBRFV is a newly identified virus, first appeared in Israel in 2014. Reports of recent ToBRFV outbreaks around the world indicate an emerging global epidemic in tomato cultivation. Virus spread from initially infected cells, site of inoculation, to the neighbouring uninfected cells through plasmodesma (PD). Viral factors including MPs are manoeuvring the PD structures and size exclusion limit to allow the passage of virions or viral genomes, a process that requires the intimate interaction of both the viral MP and both structural and regulatory host proteins to allow infection. A few of the host proteins are known to promote virus spread like remorin, synaptotagmin-A (STYA), calreticulin and plasmodesmata-located proteins (PDLPs) and have been found to localise to PD and associated membranes and show an interaction with viral MPs. The present proposal therefore has been conceived to identify the plasmodesmal factors and its associated membranes having role in local and systemic movement of ToBRFV in tomato/model plant. Tentative members to identify their role in plasmodesmal gating may be remorins/syntaxin-6 /Kinase interacting (Kip1-like) family/β-1,3-Glucanases/synaptotagmins (SYT)/pectin methylesterases (PME)/pectin methylesterase inhibitor (PMEI)/plasmodesmata located protein-5 (PDLP5)/BEACH domain containing protein (BDCPs). To achieve the objectives, diseased samples will be collected and further NGS approach will lead to the knowledge of tomato occurring viruses. To identify the candidates, agroinfectious clones of virus and its MP will be developed. The cell wall fraction having plasmodesmata and associated plasma membrane and endoplasmic reticulum will be isolated, interacting partners with PD will be identified by co-immunoprecipitation and validated by BiFC and Y2H assays. As, MP of this virus is able to break the long lasting Tm-22 mediated resistance and therefore identifying MP interacting partners would be interesting to study. The study will elucidate plant plasmodesmata and associated plasma membrane and endoplasmic reticulum factors in the movement of virus. The identified plant factors may be utilized in development of virus-resistant transgenic plants which are capable of providing the broad term resistance. |
Co-PI: | Dr. Vijayanandraj S, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh-226001, Dr. Praveen Chandra Verma, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh-226001 |