Publications by authors named "Andre Bertran"

Cyst nematodes are considered a dominant threat to yield for a wide range of major food crops. Current control strategies are mainly dependent on crop rotation and the use of resistant cultivars. Various crops exhibit single dominant resistance (R) genes that are able to activate effective host-specific resistance to certain cyst nematode species and/or populations.

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The activity of intracellular plant nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NB-LRR) immune receptors is fine-tuned by interactions between the receptors and their partners. Identifying NB-LRR interacting proteins is therefore crucial to advance our understanding of how these receptors function. A co-immunoprecipitation/mass spectrometry screening was performed in Nicotiana benthamiana to identify host proteins associated with the resistance protein Gpa2, a CC-NB-LRR immune receptor conferring resistance against the potato cyst nematode Globodera pallida.

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Article Synopsis
  • Researchers conducted a VIGS screen using tobacco rattle virus on Nicotiana benthamiana to identify host factors linked to the susceptibility of the tomato spotted wilt orthotospovirus (TSWV).
  • The methodology was refined to enable systematic testing of thousands of clones while mitigating the impact of dual viral infections.
  • Five clones showed significant resistance to TSWV, with one clone targeting the ribosomal protein S6 gene family, which plays a key role in TSWV susceptibility and is also involved in the replication of various plant RNA viruses.
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Article Synopsis
  • The tripartite genome of TSWV is combined with two crucial viral proteins to form infectious ribonucleoprotein complexes (RNPs) necessary for viral replication and transcription.
  • Analysis of RNPs from TSWV-infected plants showed they contain plant proteins linked to sugar transport and stress response, while those from yeast emphasized RNA processing and ribosome assembly.
  • Gene silencing experiments in plants identified four host factors essential for the systemic spread of TSWV and the development of disease symptoms.
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Nematodes are presumably the most abundant Metazoa on Earth, and can even be found in some of the most hostile environments of our planet. Various types of hypobiosis evolved to adapt their life cycles to such harsh environmental conditions. The five most distal major clades of the phylum Nematoda (Clades 8-12), formerly referred to as the Secernentea, contain many economically relevant parasitic nematodes.

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Frequencies of CpG and UpA dinucleotides in most plant RNA virus genomes show degrees of suppression comparable to those of vertebrate RNA viruses. While pathways that target CpG and UpAs in HIV-1 and echovirus 7 genomes and restrict their replication have been partly characterised, whether an analogous process drives dinucleotide underrepresentation in plant viruses remains undetermined. We examined replication phenotypes of compositionally modified mutants of potato virus Y (PVY) in which CpG or UpA frequencies were maximised in non-structural genes (including helicase and polymerase encoding domains) while retaining protein coding.

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Polygonum ringspot virus (PolRSV) is a recently characterized Tospovirus reported in Italy. Northern blot analyses of PolRSV infections in Nicotiana benthamiana and tomato plants showed that a viral RNA species with nearly twice the length of the Small genomic RNA (S-RNA) accumulated abundantly in the former host, but was not detected in the latter. Additional assays confirmed that biogenesis of this novel RNA species was common to all PolRSV isolates tested and also to an isolate of Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV).

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The tospoviral RNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RdRp), or L proteins, perform several conserved functions during virus replication in host cells. In this study, an L segment sequence of 9,040 bp from a new tospovirus (family Bunyaviridae) naturally infecting bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) plants was characterized.

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