Virus-Induced Alterations in Primary Metabolism Modulate Susceptibility toTobacco rattle virusin Arabidopsis    

Abstract

During compatible virus infections, plants respond by reprogramming gene expression and metabolite content. While gene expression studies are profuse, our knowledge of the metabolic changes that occur in the presence of the virus is limited. Here, we combine gene expression and metabolite profiling in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) infected with Tobacco rattle virus (TRV) in order to investigate the influence of primary metabolism on virus infection. Our results revealed that primary metabolism is reconfigured in many ways during TRV infection, as reflected by significant changes in the levels of sugars and amino acids. Multivariate data analysis revealed that these alterations were particularly conspicuous at the time points of maximal accumulation of TRV, although infection time was the dominant source of variance during the process. Furthermore, TRV caused changes in lipid and fatty acid composition in infected leaves. We found that several Arabidopsis mutants deficient in branched-chain amino acid catabolism or fatty acid metabolism possessed altered susceptibility to TRV. Finally, we showed that increments in the putrescine content in TRV-infected plants correlated with enhanced tolerance to freezing stress in TRV-infected plants and that impairment of putrescine biosynthesis promoted virus multiplication. Our results thus provide an interesting overview for a better understanding of the relationship between primary metabolism and virus infection.

Identification and regulation of host genes related to Rice stripe virus symptom production

“…Thus the chlorosis in silenced plants seems not to be related to levels of TRV accumulation. Although TRV makes profound changes in primary metabolism and photosynthesis (Fernandez‐Calvino et al ., ) it did not cause chlorosis when expressed alone. Therefore, although we cannot completely rule out the possibility that chlorosis can be induced by the combined effect of target silencing and TRV, it seems reasonable to assume that down‐regulation of genes identified in this work contributed, at least to some extent, to the development of chlorotic symptoms.…”

Plum pox virus capsid protein suppresses plant pathogen‐associated molecular pattern (PAMP)‐triggered immunity

“…Plant infection by viruses is associated with cellular perturbations, including a massive reprogramming of host gene expression (Hanley‐Bowdoin et al ., ; Lindbo et al ., ; Pallas and García, ; Whitham et al ., ). The analysis of previously published transcriptomic data derived from Arabidopsis tissues infected with viruses (Ascencio‐Ibáñez et al ., ; Babu et al ., ; Espinoza et al ., ; Fernandez‐Calvino et al ., ; Ishihara et al ., ; Marathe et al ., ; Pierce and Rey, ; Rodrigo et al ., ; Yang et al ., ) has indicated that plant colonization is associated with the transcriptional regulation of genes encoding key factors from PTI pathways, such as PRRs themselves, co‐receptors, regulators, MAPKs and transcription factors (Table S1, see Supporting Information). This suggests that cellular components belonging to the PTI machinery may play a role in antiviral defences in plants.…”

“…The absence of colour indicates that the corresponding genes are not up‐ or down‐regulated. Data were extracted from transcriptomic analyses published previously (Ascencio‐Ibáñez et al, ; Babu et al, ; Espinoza et al, ; Fernandez‐Calvino et al, ; Ishihara et al, ; Marathe et al, ; Pierce and Rey, ; Rodrigo et al, ; Yang et al, ). ER‐QC, endoplasmic reticulum‐quality control; CDPK, calcium‐dependent protein kinase; MAPK, mitogen‐activated protein kinase; PRR, pattern recognition receptor; RBP, RNA‐binding protein; SERK, somatic embryogenesis receptor kinase (protein family containing BAK1/SERK3 and BKK1/SERK4).…”

Crosstalk between epigenetic silencing and infection by tobacco rattle virus in Arabidopsis

“…TRV was derived from an infectious clone of which pTRV1 was described previously (Liu et al ., ). pTRV2‐GFP contains the soluble modified yellowfish green fluorescence protein (smGFP) coding gene adjacent to the promoter region of the pea early browning virus (PEBV) (Fernandez‐Calvino et al ., ).…”

“…Plants were rub‐inoculated on rosette leaves using fresh inoculum prepared from Nicotiana benthamiana leaves systemically infected with TRV‐GFP as described (Fernandez‐Calvino et al ., ). Arabidopsis control plants were mock‐inoculated with extracts from healthy leaves and processed as the infected plants.…”