Abstract
The begomoviruses (family Geminiviridae) associated with cotton leaf curl disease (CLCuD) pose a major threat to cotton productivity in South–East Asia including Pakistan and India. These viruses have single-stranded, circular DNA genome, of ∼2800 nt in size, encapsidated in twinned icosa-hedera, transmitted by ubiquitous whitefly and are associated with satellite molecules referred to as alpha- and betasatellite. To circumvent the proliferation of these viruses numerous techniques, ranging from conventional breeding to molecular approaches have been applied. Such devised strategies worked perfectly well for a short time period and then viruses relapse due to various reasons including multiple infections, where related viruses synergistically interact with each other, virus proliferation and evolution. Another shortcoming is, until now, that all molecular biology approaches are devised to control only helper begomoviruses but not to control associated satellites. Despite the fact that satellites could add various functions to helper begomoviruses, they remain ignored. Such conditions necessitate a very comprehensive technique that can offer best controlling strategy not only against helper begomoviruses but also their associated DNA-satellites. In the current scenario clustered regulatory interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR associated nuclease 9 (Cas9) has proved to be versatile technique that has very recently been deployed successfully to control different geminiviruses. The CRISPR/Cas9 system has been proved to be a comprehensive technique to control different geminiviruses, however, like previously used techniques, only a single virus is targeted and hitherto it has not been deployed to control begomovirus complexes associated with DNA-satellites. Here in this article, we proposed an inimitable, unique, and broad spectrum controlling method based on multiplexed CRISPR/Cas9 system where a cassette of sgRNA is designed to target not only the whole CLCuD-associated begomovirus complex but also the associated satellite molecules.
Highlights
Cotton leaf curl disease (CLCuD) is a top ranked endemic disease to cotton in Pakistan, northwestern India and Africa, and causes a severe short fall in the economy it is detrimental to the socio-economic values of the people (Mansoor et al, 2003; Varma and Malathi, 2003; Sattar et al, 2013)
The clustered regulatory interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR associated nuclease 9 (Cas9) has been employed against just single species of geminiviruses, as previously mentioned, which limits this technology from reaching its full potential
Baltes et al (2015) showed that designed sgRNA coupled with catalytically inactive Cas9 could control the Bean yellow dwarf virus (BeYDV) genome without cleaving the genome, Cas9-HF (Kleinstiver et al, 2016; Slaymaker et al, 2016) or dCas9 (Baltes et al, 2015) could be used to eliminate the off-targets effects
Summary
Cotton leaf curl disease (CLCuD) is a top ranked endemic disease to cotton in Pakistan, northwestern India and Africa, and causes a severe short fall in the economy it is detrimental to the socio-economic values of the people (Mansoor et al, 2003; Varma and Malathi, 2003; Sattar et al, 2013). Of these two DNA-satellites, betasatellites are more diverse and their encoded single protein, βC1, adds more functions towards the viral pathogenesis than the alphasatellites This protein is a suppressor of host defense, a pathogenicity/symptom determinant (Saeed et al, 2005; Qazi et al, 2007), may be involved in movement (Saeed et al, 2007), increases the helper begomovirus titer (Briddon et al, 2001), complements the missing functions of helper begomovirus genes (Iqbal et al, 2012), modulates the levels of developmental microRNAs (Amin et al, 2011), binds to DNA/RNA in sequence independent manner (Cui et al, 2005), interacts with various host-encoded factors, forms multimers, and interacts with CP (Cheng et al, 2011), and suppresses jasmonic acid production in plants (Zhang et al, 2012)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
