elF4E - a suseptibility factor for potyvirus infection: with potential for predictive resistance strategies

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Eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E (eIF4E) exists in all cells of higher organisms and plays a central RNA (mRNA) translation. Some plants without particular variants of this protein can be resistant to infection with some viruses. Although Potyviruses, which also depend upon this protein, have an RNA with a slighty different structure from that of mRNAs, we believe that eIF4E plays a very similar role in viral RNA translation. From studies of different crop plants that are resistant to potyviruses, we know of different forms of eIF4E which cannot assist potyvirus infection. In our studies of peas resistant to Pea seed-borne mosaic virus; PSbMV, potyvirus), we have identified a further very surprising property of eIF4E in that it has the ability assist PSbMV to move from one cell to another, to spread the infection through the plant. Hence, altered eIF4E prevents the virus from both replicating and spreading in resistant pea plants. Cell-to-cell movement of large molecules is also important for plant growth and development although the mechanisms involved are generally very poorly understood. Therefore, the study of eIF4E can tell us about several very important areas of biology: how viruses infect plants and the potential for resistance in plants, the translation of RNAs to produce proteins, and cell-to-cell communication. We will make new changes in the eIF4E protein and relate these to the potential of plants to carry out mRNA translation, virus replication, and virus movement from cell to cell. We will also determine the atomic structure of the eIF4E and virus proteins that meet together in a complex. In this way we will understand how the proteins join together and how to prevent it happening. Hence, we will identify mutant pea plants where the complex cannot form and therefore plants with potential to exhibit new resistance to PSbMV and other potyviruses.

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