Tobacco mosaic virus: a model system for plant biology.
Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) has had an illustrious history for more than 100 years, dating to Beijerinck's description of the mosaic disease of tobacco as a contagium vivum fluidum and the modern usage of the word "virus." Since then, TMV has been acknowledged as a preferred didactic model and a symbolic model to illuminate the essential features that define a virus. TMV additionally emerged as a prototypic model to investigate the biology of host plants, namely tobacco. TMV also exemplifies how a model system furthers novel, and often unexpected, developments in biology and virology. Today, TMV is used as a tool to study host-pathogen interactions and cellular trafficking, and as a technology to express valuable pharmaceutical proteins in tobacco. The history of TMV illustrates how pragmatic strategies to control an economically important disease of tobacco have had unexpected and transforming effects across platforms that impinge on plant health and public health.
Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843-2132, USA. kbgs@tamu.edu
Karen-Beth G
KB
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D000383:Agriculture / Q000266:history*; D000818:Animals; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D008954:Models, Biological; D010935:Plant Diseases / Q000821:virology; D011634:Public Health; D014026:Nicotiana / Q000821:virology*; D014027:Tobacco Mosaic Virus