The Use of Engineered Plant Viruses in a Trans-Kingdom Silencing Strategy Against Their Insect Vectors.

Anna Kolliopoulou,Dimitrios Kontogiannatos,Luc Swevers

doi:10.3389/fpls.2020.00917

Anna Kolliopoulou, Dimitrios Kontogiannatos + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2020.00917

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Abstract

Plants, plant viruses, and their vectors are co-evolving actors that co-exist and interact in nature. Insects are the most important vectors of plant viruses, serving as both carriers and hosts for the virus. This trans-kingdom interaction can be harnessed for the production of recombinant plant viruses designed to target insect genes via the RNAi machinery. The selection of the adequate viruses is important since they must infect and preferentially replicate in both the host plant and the insect vector. The routes of transmission that determine the extent of the infection inside the insect vary among different plant viruses. In the context of the proposed strategy, plant viruses that are capable of transversing the insect gut-hemocoel barrier and replicating in insect tissues are attractive candidates. Thus, the transmission of such viruses in a persistent and propagative manner is considered as a prerequisite for this strategy to be feasible, a characteristic that is found in viruses from the families Bunyaviridae, Reoviridae, and Rhabdoviridae. In addition, several RNA viruses are known that replicate in both plant and insect tissues via a yet unclarified transmission route. In this review, advances in knowledge of trans-kingdom transmission of plant viruses and future perspectives for their engineering as silencing vectors are thoroughly discussed.

Highlights

Studies on plant viruses’ biology have shown their dependence on a plethora of vector organisms for their transmission to a new host
As the replication of propagative plant viruses is expected to lead to the production of viral short-interfering RNAs in the insect vector, it can be assumed that the RNAi silencing machinery is turned on upon such an infection
In the case of Hemiptera, an interesting example of efficient application of recombinant VIGS technology to combat insect vectors was the construction of recombinant Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV, Virgaviridae) that produced RNAs in sense or antisense orientation targeting actin, chitin synthase 1, and V-ATPase genes of the hemipteran pest Planococcus citri that were initially inoculated to Nicotiana benthamiana plants through agroinfiltration

Summary

Introduction

Studies on plant viruses’ biology have shown their dependence on a plethora of vector organisms for their transmission to a new host. Genomes of propagative viruses have the potential to be engineered into agents that cause gene silencing in the insect vectors by the RNAi mechanism, which could be developed into an environmentally safe strategy to control the vectors.

Results

Conclusion