Fig. 1.

Symptoms and accumulation levels of wild type (WT) PVX and four attenuated mutants in N. benthamiana plants. a Symptoms of WT PVX and mutants E46A, N863A, N968A and E1001A at 8 days post agro-inoculation (dpai). Mock: Plants inoculated with Argobacterium cells carrying the empty vector pCAMBIA0390. b The CP accumulation level in the systemically infected N. benthamiana leaves at 8 dpai was determined by Western blotting. The relative CP accumulation level of each mutant was marked. c and d The accumulation levels of plus- (c) and minus-strand (d) RNA in N. benthamiana plants infected with WT PVX and four mutants at 10 dpai. The numbers in the figure represented the accumulation levels of each mutant relative to that of WT PVX. (+) strand RNA: PVX genomic RNA; TGB sgRNA: subgenomic RNA for triple gene block; CP sgRNA: subgenomic RNA for coat protein gene; (−) strand RNA: RNA complementary to PVX genomic RNA