RNA silencing is an important defence mechanism against virus infection, and many plant viruses encode RNA silencing suppressors as a counter defence. In this study, we analysed the RNA silencing suppression ability of multiple virus species of the genus Potexvirus. Nicotiana benthamiana plants exhibiting RNA silencing of a green fluorescent protein (GFP) transgene showed reversal of GFP fluorescence when systemically infected with potexviruses. However, the degree of GFP fluorescence varied among potexviruses. Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression assay in N. benthamiana leaves demonstrated that the triple gene block protein 1 (TGBp1) encoded by these potexviruses has drastically different levels of silencing suppressor activity, and these differences were directly related to variations in the silencing suppression ability during virus infection. These results suggest that suppressor activities differ even among homologous proteins encoded by viruses of the same genus, and that TGBp1 contributes to the variation in the level of RNA silencing suppression by potexviruses. Moreover, we investigated the effect of TGBp1 encoded by Plantago asiatica mosaic virus (PlAMV), which exhibited a strong suppressor activity, on the accumulation of microRNA, virus genomic RNA and virus-derived small interfering RNAs.
INTRODUCTIONRNA silencing is an RNA-guided gene regulatory mechanism that operates in a wide variety of eukaryotic organisms. RNA silencing begins with processing of an RNA trigger into small RNAs (~21-30 nt) by the RNase III-type enzyme Dicer (Bernstein et al., 2001). In plants, small RNAs are divided into two classes: small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs) (Mallory & Vaucheret, 2006;Brodersen & Voinnet, 2006). siRNAs are generated from double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) which are usually derived from transgenes, viruses or endogenous non-coding RNA genes. On the other hand, miRNAs are generated from genome-encoded precursor RNAs with imperfect stem-loop structures. These small RNAs are then incorporated into multicomponent RNA-induced silencing complexes (RISC), which contain an Argonaute (AGO) family protein and lead to homologous RNA cleavage or translational repression, and (or) DNA/chromatin methylation (Hammond, 2005;Xie et al., 2004;Chapman & Carrington, 2007).One of the important roles of RNA silencing in plants is antiviral defence (Ratcliff et al., 1997;Vance & Vaucheret, 2001;Baulcombe, 2004;Ding & Voinnet, 2007). During virus infection, dsRNAs derived from viral replication intermediates or highly structured viral genomic RNAs trigger RNA silencing directed against the viruses. Consequently, initially symptomatic plants recover from infection and become resistant to secondary infection with homologous viruses. To counteract RNA silencing, viruses have evolved RNA silencing suppressors. More than 40 RNA silencing suppressors have been identified in plant, animal, insect and fungal viruses (Li & Ding, 2006). These suppressors do not have obvious sequence similarity to one another, and t...