Hostile takeover – Viral strategies to hijack a plant

Viruses, as obligate intracellular parasites, rely on a host cell for their persistence. To multiply, viruses must manipulate the host cell by hijacking, inhibiting, or repurposing its molecular machinery, thereby creating an environment conducive to viral replication. Typically, this task is achieved using only a handful of viral proteins encoded in the small-sized viral genome. This is evident in geminiviruses, plant viruses with circular single-stranded DNA genomes believed to encode only 4-8 viral proteins. Remarkably, despite their limited genetic arsenal, geminiviruses can establish systemic infections, alter plant development and physiology, manipulate the behaviour of their insect vectors, and cause devastating diseases to crops worldwide. How these viruses invade and manipulate their plant hosts using only a handful of proteins is a long-standing, intriguing question. Recent findings in our research group shed light on some of the strategies utilized by geminiviruses to infect plants: targeting of host hub proteins, repurposing of the host molecular machinery, multifunctionality of viral proteins, and maximization of their coding space. These insights contribute to our understanding of the remarkable efficiency with which geminiviruses manipulate host systems, paving the way for future strategies to combat viral infections in plants.

講者: Prof. Rosa Lozano-Durán (Full Professor (W3) at the ZMBP, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany)

主持人: Dr. Hsin-Hung Yeh

時間:2025/02/14 2:00 PM

地點:農業科技大樓1樓A134演講廳