Coordinated recruitment of conserved defense-signaling pathways in PVY^O-Infected Nicotiana benthamiana

ABSTRACT

Potato virus Y (PVY) is an aphid-transmitted potyvirus that affects economically important solanaceous species. In this study, the phenomena and mechanisms following infection with PVY were investigated in tobacco (Nicotiana benthamiana). In tobacco plants, infection with a mild strain of PVY (PVY^O) induced stunted growth in the first two leaves at the shoot apex starting 7 days post-infection (dpi), and mosaic symptoms began to appear on newly developing young leaves at 14 dpi. Using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and ultrastructure analysis, we confirmed that viral particles accumulated only in the upper developing leaves of infected plants. We analyzed reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation in leaves from the bottom to the top of the plants to investigate whether delayed symptom development in leaves was associated with a defense response to the virus. In addition, the ultrastructural analysis confirmed the increase of ATG4 and ATG8, which are autophagy markers by endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, and the expression of genes involved in viral RNA suppression. Overall, our results suggested that viral RNA silencing and induced autophagy may play a role in the inhibition of viral symptom development in host plants in response to PVY^O infection.

KEYWORDS:

• Antioxidant
• defense
• potyvirus
• ROS
• ATG4
• ATG8

Acknowledgments

The PVY^o antibody used in this paper was provided by the Biotechnology Laboratory, College of Natural Sciences, Seoul Women’s University.

Disclosure statement

Author YK was employed by BIO-FD&C Co., Ltd.,. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Author contributions

W-JK, WK, YK, HC and S-JK designed the study. W-JK, WK, and YK performed the experiments and analyzed the data. W-JK, WK, YK, HC and S-JK wrote the manuscript. All authors have discussed the results and approved the final manuscript.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15592324.2023.2252972

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. RS-2023-00244707) and the Chosun University 2022.