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Interactions between Nicotiana benthamiana and yellow tailflower mild mottle virus, and spillover of YTMMV
Doctoral Thesis   Open access

Interactions between Nicotiana benthamiana and yellow tailflower mild mottle virus, and spillover of YTMMV

Weinan Xu
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Murdoch University
2022
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Abstract

A single lineage of Nicotiana benthamiana referred to as RA-4, or the Laboratory strain (LAB), is an important model plant used across several areas of research, but especially plant virology. It is known to be vulnerable to several hundred plant viruses and has been referred to as a ‘super host’. Compared to other N. benthamiana accessions collected from wild populations in northern Australia, RA-4 differs in several ways, but notably in having a 72 bp insertion mutation in the coding region of its RNA-dependent RNA Polymerase 1 gene, abbreviated to NbRDR1, in which the mutated allele is denoted NbRDR1m (where ‘m’ refers to this mutation). RDR gene products in plants play a role in RNA interference (RNAi), a viral defence mechanism in eukaryotes. Thus, RA-4 being defective in RDR1 is hypothesised as being defective in virus defence, thereby allowing many viruses to systemically infect it and to replicate to high levels. Several papers have referred to RA-4 as being ‘hyper-susceptible’ to viruses, but very little comparative study has been done on responses to virus infection by other accessions of N. benthamiana that express wild-type (functional) NbRDR1.

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