Rice stripe virus (RSV) is the type member of the genus Tenuivirus. RSV has four single-stranded RNAs and causes severe disease in rice fields in different parts of China. To date, no reports have described how RSV spreads within host plants or the viral and/or host factor(s) required for tenuivirus movement. We investigated functions of six RSV-encoded proteins using trans-complementation experiments and biolistic bombardment. We demonstrate that NSvc4, encoded by RSV RNA4, supports the intercellular trafficking of a movementdeficient Potato virus X in Nicotiana benthamiana leaves. We also determined that upon biolistic bombardment or agroinfiltration, NSvc4:enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) fusion proteins localize predominantly near or within the walls of onion and tobacco epidermal cells. In addition, the NSvc4:eGFP fusion protein can move from initially bombarded cells to neighboring cells in Nicotiana benthamiana leaves. Immunocytochemistry using tissue sections from RSV-infected rice leaves and an RSV NSvc4-specific antibody showed that the NSvc4 protein accumulated in walls of RSV-infected leaf cells. Gel retardation assays revealed that the NSvc4 protein interacts with single-stranded RNA in vitro, a common feature of many reported plant viral movement proteins (MPs). RSV NSvc4 failed to interact with the RSV nucleocapsid protein using yeast two-hybrid assays. Taken together, our data indicate that RSV NSvc4 is likely an MP of the virus. This is the first report describing a tenuivirus MP.
Rice stripe virus (RSV) is the type member of the genusTenuivirus (Association of Applied Biologists Descriptions of Plant Viruses website [http://www.dpvweb.net/dpv/showdpv .php?dpvnoϭ375]). RSV causes severe diseases in rice fields, especially in China, and is known to be transmitted by the small brown plant hopper (Laodelphax striatellus) in a persistent, circulative-propagative manner (8,46). RSV is an RNA virus with four segmented single-stranded genomes, contains seven open reading frames (ORFs), and uses a negative and ambisense coding strategy for replication and infection in plants ( Fig. 1) (32). RNA1 is negative sense and encodes a putative protein with a molecular mass of approximately 337 kDa; this protein is reported to be part of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase and is associated with the RSV filamentous ribonucleoprotein (42). RNAs 2 to 4 are ambisense, and each RNA contains two ORFs, one in the 5Ј half of the viral RNA and the other in the 5Ј half of the viral cRNA. RNA2 encodes NS2 (about 22.8 kDa, with an unknown function) from the viral RNA and NSvc2 (94 kDa, a putative membrane glycoprotein) from the viral cRNA. RNA3 encodes a 23-kDa protein that functions as a suppressor of gene silencing (R. Xiong et al., unpublished data) and the nucleocapsid protein (NCP) (35 kDa). The nonstructural disease-specific protein (SP) (21.5 kDa) and NSvc4 (32.5 kDa, with unknown function) are encoded by RNA4 (14,15,31,38,47,48).Numerous studies have indicated that plant viruses encode specific proteins known...