Controlling Geminiviruses before Transmission: Prospects.

Muhammad Salman Mubarik,Amal H Alajmi,Fatin K I Alshamasi,Muhammad Sajjad,Reda Helmy Ahmed Sammour,Zulqurnain Khan,Abdullah Ahmed Al-Ghamdi,Abd El-Zaher M.A Mustafa,Aftab Ahmad,Mohamed Soliman Elshikh,Sultan Habibullah Khan,Ali Raza

doi:10.3390/plants9111556

Abstract

Whitefly (Bemisia tabaci)-transmitted Geminiviruses cause serious diseases of crop plants in tropical and sub-tropical regions. Plants, animals, and their microbial symbionts have evolved complex ways to interact with each other that impact their life cycles. Blocking virus transmission by altering the biology of vector species, such as the whitefly, can be a potential approach to manage these devastating diseases. Virus transmission by insect vectors to plant hosts often involves bacterial endosymbionts. Molecular chaperonins of bacterial endosymbionts bind with virus particles and have a key role in the transmission of Geminiviruses. Hence, devising new approaches to obstruct virus transmission by manipulating bacterial endosymbionts before infection opens new avenues for viral disease control. The exploitation of bacterial endosymbiont within the insect vector would disrupt interactions among viruses, insects, and their bacterial endosymbionts. The study of this cooperating web could potentially decrease virus transmission and possibly represent an effective solution to control viral diseases in crop plants.

Highlights

Insects are an essential group of vectors for the spread of various plant viruses
Most plant viruses rely on insect vectors for their persistence and spread [6,7]
It is estimated that over 75% of plant virus species are vectored by insects [8]

Summary

Whitefly

Insects are an essential group of vectors for the spread of various plant viruses. Most plant viruses rely on insect vectors for their persistence and spread [6,7]. The endosymbionts of whitefly and other insect vector hosts play a key role in virus transmission [18,19]. And their bacterial endosymbionts commonly form close symbiotic associations that emerge from co-evolution. Once the GroEL escorts the virus through the whitefly’s hemocoel to its salivary glands, time the whitefly feeds, the virus is transferred to the new plant from the whitefly’s saliva [7,33] This unique function of GroEL is a necessary step for the successful transmission of the virus to a new host plant (Figure 1) [34,35].

Difficulties

Findings

Stopover Geminiviruses Transmission