Argonaute 2 Controls Antiviral Activity against Sweet Potato Mild Mottle Virus in Nicotiana benthamiana

After silencing suppression: miRNA targets strike back

Within the continuous tug-of-war between plants and microbes, RNA silencing stands out as a key battleground. Pathogens, in their quest to colonize host plants, have evolved a diverse arsenal of silencing suppressors as a common strategy to undermine the host's RNA silencing-based defenses. When RNA silencing malfunctions in the host, genes that are usually targeted and silenced by microRNAs (miRNAs) become active and can contribute to the reprogramming of host cells, providing an additional defense mechanism. A growing body of evidence suggests that miRNAs may act as intracellular sensors to enable a rapid response to pathogen threats. Herein we review how plant miRNA targets play a crucial role in immune responses against different pathogens.

High-throughput characterization and phenotyping of resistance and tolerance to virus infection in sweetpotato

Breeders have made important efforts to develop genotypes able to resist virus attacks in sweetpotato, a major crop providing food security and poverty alleviation to smallholder farmers in many regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America. However, a lack of accurate objective quantitative methods for this selection target in sweetpotato prevents a consistent and extensive assessment of large breeding populations. In this study, an approach to characterize and classify resistance in sweetpotato was established by assessing total yield loss and virus load after the infection of the three most common viruses (SPFMV, SPCSV, SPLCV). Twelve sweetpotato genotypes with contrasting reactions to virus infection were grown in the field under three different treatments: pre-infected by the three viruses, un-infected and protected from re-infection, and un-infected but exposed to natural infection. Virus loads were assessed using ELISA, (RT-)qPCR, and loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) methods, and also through multispectral reflectance and canopy temperature collected using an unmanned aerial vehicle. Total yield reduction compared to control and the arithmetic sum of (RT-)qPCR relative expression ratios were used to classify genotypes into four categories: resistant, tolerant, susceptible, and sensitives. Using 14 remote sensing predictors, machine learning algorithms were trained to classify all plots under the said categories. The study found that remotely sensed predictors were effective in discriminating the different virus response categories. The results suggest that using machine learning and remotely sensed data, further complemented by fast and sensitive LAMP assays to confirm results of predicted classifications could be used as a high throughput approach to support virus resistance phenotyping in sweetpotato breeding.

Argonaute 5-mediated antiviral defense and viral counter-defense in Nicotiana benthamiana

The argonaute (AGO) family proteins play a crucial role in preventing viral invasions through the plant antiviral RNA silencing pathway, with distinct AGO proteins recruited for specific antiviral mechanisms. Our previous study revealed that Nicotiana benthamiana AGO5 (NbAGO5) expression was significantly upregulated in response to bamboo mosaic virus (BaMV) infection. However, the roles of NbAGO5 in antiviral mechanisms remained to be explored. In this research, we examined the antiviral functions of NbAGO5 in the infections of different viruses. It was found that the accumulation of NbAGO5 was induced not only at the RNA but also at the protein level following the infections of BaMV, potato virus X (PVX), tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), and cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) in N. benthamiana. To explore the antiviral mechanism and regulatory function of NbAGO5, we generated NbAGO5 overexpression (OE-NbAGO5) and knockout (nbago5) transgenic N. benthamiana lines. Our findings reveal that NbAGO5 provides defense against BaMV, PVX, TMV, and a mutant CMV deficient in 2b gene, but not against the wild-type CMV and turnip mosaic virus (TuMV). Through affinity purification and small RNA northern blotting, we demonstrated that NbAGO5 exerts its antiviral function by binding to viral small interfering RNAs (vsiRNAs). Moreover, we observed that CMV 2b and TuMV HC-Pro interact with NbAGO5, triggering its degradation via the 26S proteasome and autophagy pathways, thereby allowing these viruses to overcome NbAGO5-mediated defense. In addition, TuMV HC-Pro provides another line of counter-defense by interfering with vsiRNA binding by NbAGO5. Our study provides further insights into the antiviral RNA interference mechanism and the complex interplay between NbAGO5 and plant viruses.

AGO2a but not AGO2b mediates antiviral defense against infection of wild-type cucumber mosaic virus in tomato

Evolutionarily conserved antiviral RNA interference (RNAi) mediates a primary antiviral innate immunity preventing infection of broad-spectrum viruses in plants. However, the detailed mechanism in plants is still largely unknown, especially in important agricultural crops, including tomato. Varieties of pathogenic viruses evolve to possess viral suppressors of RNA silencing (VSRs) to suppress antiviral RNAi in the host. Due to the prevalence of VSRs, it is still unknown whether antiviral RNAi truly functions to prevent invasion by natural wild-type viruses in plants and animals. In this research, for the first time we applied CRISPR-Cas9 to generate ago2a, ago2b, or ago2ab mutants for two differentiated Solanum lycopersicum AGO2s, key effectors in antiviral RNAi. We found that AGO2a but not AGO2b was significantly induced to inhibit the propagation of not only VSR-deficient Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) but also wild-type CMV-Fny in tomato; however, neither AGO2a nor AGO2b regulated disease induction after infection with either virus. Our findings firstly reveal a prominent role of AGO2a in antiviral RNAi innate immunity in tomato and demonstrate that antiviral RNAi evolves to defend against infection of natural wild-type CMV-Fny in tomato. However, AGO2a-mediated antiviral RNAi does not play major roles in promoting tolerance of tomato plants to CMV infection for maintaining health.

Transcriptome Profiling Reveals a Petunia Transcription Factor, PhCOL4, Contributing to Antiviral RNA Silencing

RNA silencing is a common antiviral mechanism in eukaryotic organisms. However, the transcriptional regulatory mechanism that controls the RNA silencing process remains elusive. Here, we performed high-depth transcriptome analysis on petunia (Petunia hybrida) leaves infected with tobacco rattle virus (TRV) strain PPK20. A total of 7,402 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified. Of them, some RNA silencing-related transcripts, such as RNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RDRs), Dicer-like RNase III enzymes (DCLs), and Argonautes (AGOs), were induced by viral attack. Furthermore, we performed TRV-based virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) assay on 39 DEGs encoding putative transcription factors (TFs), using green fluorescent protein (GFP) and phytoene desaturase (PhPDS) as reporters. Results showed that the down-regulation of PhbHLH41, PhbHLH93, PhZPT4-3, PhCOL4, PhHSF-B3A, PhNAC90, and PhWRKY75 led to enhanced TRV accumulation and inhibited PhPDS-silenced photobleaching phenotype. In contrast, silencing of PhERF22 repressed virus accumulation and promoted photobleaching development. Thus, these TFs were identified as potential positive and negative regulators of antiviral RNA silencing, respectively. One positive regulator PhCOL4, belonging to the B-box zinc finger family, was selected for further functional characterization. Silencing and transient overexpression of PhCOL4 resulted in decreased and increased expression of several RNA silencing-related genes. DNA affinity purification sequencing analysis revealed that PhCOL4 targeted PhRDR6 and PhAGO4. Dual luciferase and yeast one-hybrid assays determined the binding of PhCOL4 to the PhRDR6 and PhAGO4 promoters. Our findings suggest that TRV-GFP-PhPDS-based VIGS could be helpful to identify transcriptional regulators of antiviral RNA silencing.