Abstract

BACKGROUND: Most plant viruses rely on vectors for their transmission and spread. One of the outstanding biological questions concerning the vector-pathogen-symbiont multi-trophic interactions is the potential involvement of vector symbionts in the virus transmission process. Here, we used a multi-factorial system containing a non-persistent plant virus, cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), its primary vector, green peach aphid, Myzus persicae, and the obligate endosymbiont, Buchnera aphidicola to explore this uncharted territory.

RESULTS: Based on our preliminary research, we hypothesized that aphid endosymbiont B. aphidicola can facilitate CMV transmission by modulating plant volatile profiles. Gene expression analyses demonstrated that CMV infection reduced B. aphidicola abundance in M. persicae, in which lower abundance of B. aphidicola was associated with a preference shift in aphids from infected to healthy plants. Volatile profile analyses confirmed that feeding by aphids with lower B. aphidicola titers reduced the production of attractants, while increased the emission of deterrents. As a result, M. persicae changed their feeding preference from infected to healthy plants.

CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that CMV infection reduces the B. aphidicola abundance in M. persicae. When viruliferous aphids feed on host plants, dynamic changes in obligate symbionts lead to a shift in plant volatiles from attraction to avoidance, thereby switching insect vector’s feeding preference from infected to healthy plants.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-29-2021

Notes/Citation Information

Published in BMC Plant Biology, v. 21, issue 1, article no. 67.

© The Author(s). 2021

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Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12870-021-02838-5

Funding Information

This work was supported by the Hunan Natural Science Foundation (2019JJ30014), the Agriculture Research System of China (CARS-16-E-17, CARS-23-D-02), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 32030088, 32072383, 31872932, 31901854).

Related Content

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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