Over the last decade, plant virus-based vectors have been developed and successfully exploited for high-yield production of heterologous proteins in plants. However, widespread application of recombinant viruses raises concerns about possible risks to the environment. One of the primary safety issues that must be considered is the uncontrolled spread of the genetically engineered virus from exp...

Pokeweed antiviral protein (PAP), a 29-kDa protein isolated from Phytolacca americana, inhibits translation by catalytically removing a specific adenine residue from the large rRNA of the 60S subunit of eukaryotic ribosomes. In addition to its ribosome-inactivating ability, PAP has potent antiviral activity against many plant and animal viruses, including HIV. We recently described the isolatio...

Potato virus X (PVX) occurs worldwide and causes an important potato disease. Complete PVX genomes were obtained from 326 new isolates Peru, which is within the crop′s main domestication center, 10 historical Andes (Bolivia, Peru) or Europe (UK), three Africa (Burundi). Concatenated open reading frames (ORFs) these plus 49 published genomic sequences analyzed. Only 18 of them recombinants, 17 P...

BACKGROUND Mating behaviors in simple invertebrate model organisms represent tractable paradigms for understanding the neural bases of sex-specific behaviors, decision-making and sensorimotor integration. However, there are few examples where such neural circuits have been defined at high resolution or interrogated. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Here we exploit the simplicity of the nematode...

METHODS: Plots measuring 9 ft X 17.5 feet (2.5 X 5 m), consisting of 4 rows with 3 ft (0.9 m) row spacing, were located on the Southern Agricultural Research Center (SARC) at Huntley, MT. The trial was planted 28 May, using third generation, PVX certified seed potatoes, cv. “Russet Norkotah”, machine-cut into 2 to 2.3 oz seed pieces, with all seed pieces being placed into furrows by hand, and c...

Cell-to-cell movement of potexviruses requires coordinated action of the coat protein and triple gene block (TGB) proteins. The structural properties of Alternanthera mosaic virus (AltMV) TGB3 were examined by methods differentiating between signal peptides and transmembrane domains, and its subcellular localization was studied by Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression and confocal microsc...

Wheat streak mosaic virus (WSMV) is an eriophyid mite-transmitted virus of the genus Tritimovirus, family Potyviridae. Complete deletion of helper component-proteinase (HC-Pro) has no effect on WSMV virulence or disease synergism, suggesting that a different viral protein suppresses RNA silencing. RNA silencing suppression assays using Nicotiana benthamiana 16C plants expressing GFP were conduc...

Host factors play crucial roles in the replication of plus-strand RNA viruses. In this report, a heat shock protein 90 homologue of Nicotiana benthamiana, NbHsp90, was identified in association with partially purified replicase complexes from BaMV-infected tissue, and shown to specifically interact with the 3' untranslated region (3' UTR) of BaMV genomic RNA, but not with the 3' UTR of BaMV-ass...