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UKnowledge > Office of the Vice President for Research > Office of Undergraduate Research > Kaleidoscope > Vol. 8 (2009)

 

Abstract

Viruses pose a threat to humans in a variety of ways — from direct infection to imposing devastating effects on the agriculture industry. Prevention of such infection requires knowledge of the mechanisms of viral infection, both in animal- and plant-infecting species. The goal of this project was to identify plant factors that interact with viral proteins in the course of infection leading to disease. Sonchus yellow net virus (SYNV) and Potato yellow dwarf virus (PYDV) were used to test the hypothesis that the viruses utilize different subsets of host factors in order to infect Nicotiana benthamiana, despite both being members of the genus Nucleorhabdovirus. Protein:protein interactions were validated with the use of bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC). In addition, these experiments required the use of transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana plants that express fluorescent markers targeted to histone 2B as an aid to establishing localization of the viral proteins within the host plant cell. Taken together, BiFC experiments conducted in “blue nuclei” transgenic plants that express CFP-H2B significantly improve image quality and information content of the experiments, providing simultaneous localization and interaction data. The utility of novel techniques and the transgenic plants developed in the Goodin lab provided the necessary tools required to fulfill the objectives of a major NSF-funded research project.

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