Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1990 May;87(9):3284–3288. doi: 10.1073/pnas.87.9.3284

Molecular characterization and biological function of the movement protein of tobacco mosaic virus in transgenic plants.

C M Deom 1, K R Schubert 1, S Wolf 1, C A Holt 1, W J Lucas 1, R N Beachy 1
PMCID: PMC53884  PMID: 2333282

Abstract

We previously demonstrated, in transgenic tobacco plants, that the role of the movement protein (MP) of tobacco mosaic virus is to facilitate the cell-to-cell spread of viral progeny during infection. An analysis of different tissues of these transgenic plants indicated that the MP accumulated in leaf, stem, and root tissue. The highest levels were detected in older leaves. The relative levels of MP in leaf tissue from transgenic plants were equivalent to, or higher than, the levels of MP in tobacco mosaic virus-infected leaf tissue. Results of subcellular fractionation of homogenates of transgenic leaf tissue showed that the MP was most abundant in the cell wall fraction of older leaves and that the protein remained at high levels in the cell wall fraction as the leaves continued to age. Significant levels of the MP were detected in a crude membrane/organelle fraction and a soluble fraction in younger leaves but decreased to low levels in older leaves. These results suggest that the MP accumulates and is stable in cell walls. We have previously shown that the MP modifies the molecular exclusion limit of plasmodesmata, which is consistent with the hypothesis that plant viruses move from cell to cell through altered plasmodesmata. We show here that the ability of the tobacco mosaic virus MP to modify the molecular exclusion limit of plasmodesmata in tobacco depends on the developmental stage of the leaf. The implications of these findings on understanding virus movement and how plasmodesmata function are discussed.

Full text

PDF
3284

Images in this article

3285Image
on p.3285
3286Image
on p.3286
3287Image
on p.3287
3287Image
on p.3287

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Barrett A. J. The many forms and functions of cellular proteinases. Fed Proc. 1980 Jan;39(1):9–14. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Bruening G., Beachy R. N., Scalla R., Zaitlin M. In vitro and in vivo translation of the ribonucleic acids of a cowpea strain of tobacco mosaic virus. Virology. 1976 Jun;71(2):498–517. doi: 10.1016/0042-6822(76)90377-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Deom C. M., Oliver M. J., Beachy R. N. The 30-kilodalton gene product of tobacco mosaic virus potentiates virus movement. Science. 1987 Jul 24;237(4813):389–394. doi: 10.1126/science.237.4813.389. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Esau K., Cronshaw J. Relation of tobacco mosaic virus to the host cells. J Cell Biol. 1967 Jun;33(3):665–678. doi: 10.1083/jcb.33.3.665. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Jefferson R. A., Kavanagh T. A., Bevan M. W. GUS fusions: beta-glucuronidase as a sensitive and versatile gene fusion marker in higher plants. EMBO J. 1987 Dec 20;6(13):3901–3907. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1987.tb02730.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Laemmli U. K. Cleavage of structural proteins during the assembly of the head of bacteriophage T4. Nature. 1970 Aug 15;227(5259):680–685. doi: 10.1038/227680a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Meshi T., Motoyoshi F., Maeda T., Yoshiwoka S., Watanabe H., Okada Y. Mutations in the tobacco mosaic virus 30-kD protein gene overcome Tm-2 resistance in tomato. Plant Cell. 1989 May;1(5):515–522. doi: 10.1105/tpc.1.5.515. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Meshi T., Watanabe Y., Saito T., Sugimoto A., Maeda T., Okada Y. Function of the 30 kd protein of tobacco mosaic virus: involvement in cell-to-cell movement and dispensability for replication. EMBO J. 1987 Sep;6(9):2557–2563. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1987.tb02544.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Odell J. T., Nagy F., Chua N. H. Identification of DNA sequences required for activity of the cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter. 1985 Feb 28-Mar 6Nature. 313(6005):810–812. doi: 10.1038/313810a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Takamatsu N., Ishikawa M., Meshi T., Okada Y. Expression of bacterial chloramphenicol acetyltransferase gene in tobacco plants mediated by TMV-RNA. EMBO J. 1987 Feb;6(2):307–311. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1987.tb04755.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Wolf S., Deom C. M., Beachy R. N., Lucas W. J. Movement protein of tobacco mosaic virus modifies plasmodesmatal size exclusion limit. Science. 1989 Oct 20;246(4928):377–379. doi: 10.1126/science.246.4928.377. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America are provided here courtesy of National Academy of Sciences

RESOURCES