Genetic resistance to plant viruses has been used for at least eighty years to control agricultural losses to viral diseases. To date, hundreds of naturally occurring genes for resistance to plant viruses have been reported from studies of both monocot and dicot crops, their wild relatives and the plant model, Arabidopsis. While viruses are relatively simple genetic entities and much progress h...

After the discovery of 'movement proteins' as a peculiarity of plant viruses and with the help of novel methods for the detection and isolation of interacting host proteins new insights have been obtained to understand the mechanisms of virus movement in plant tissues. Rapid progress in studying the molecular mechanisms of systemic spread of plant infecting viruses revealed an interrelation bet...

The emergence of next-generation "deep" sequencing has enabled the study of virus populations with much higher resolutions. This new tool increases the possibility of observing mixed infections caused by combinations of plant viruses, which are likely to occur more frequently than previously thought. The biological impact of co-infecting viruses on their host has yet to be determined and fully ...

Plant viruses typically have highly condensed genomes, yet the plant-pathogenic Cassava brown streak virus, Ugandan cassava and Euphorbia ringspot virus are unusual in encoding an enzyme not found any other “house-cleaning” inosine triphosphatase. Inosine triphosphatases (ITPases) conserved enzymes that occur all kingdoms of life perform a house-cleaning function by hydrolysing noncanonical nuc...

Viruses possessing a non-segmented genome require a specific recognition of their nucleic acid to ensure its protection in a capsid. A similar feature exists for viruses having a segmented genome, usually consisting of viral genomic segments joined together into one viral entity. While this appears as a rule for animal viruses, the majority of segmented plant viruses package their genomic segme...

The effective size of populations (Ne) determines whether selection or genetic drift is the predominant force shaping their genetic structure and evolution. Despite their high mutation rate and rapid evolution, this parameter is poorly documented experimentally in viruses, particularly plant viruses. All available studies, however, have demonstrated the existence of huge within-host demographic...

A majority of the plant-infecting viruses and many of the animal-infecting viruses are dependent upon arthropod vectors for transmission between hosts and/or as alternative hosts. The viruses have evolved specific associations with their vectors, and we are beginning to understand the underlying mechanisms that regulate the virus transmission process. A majority of plant viruses are carried on ...