Can plants use an entomopathogenic virus as a defense against herbivores?
It is by now well established that plants use various strategies to defend themselves against herbivores. Besides conventional weapons such as spines and stinging hairs and sophisticated chemical defenses, plants can also involve the enemies of the herbivores in their defense. It has been suggested that plants could even use entomopathogens as part of their defense strategies. In this paper, we show that Brassica oleraceae plants that are attacked by Myzus persicae aphids infected with an entomopathogenic parvovirus (M. persicae densovirus) transport the virus through the phloem locally and systematically. Moreover, healthy aphids that fed on the same leaf, but separated from infected aphids were infected via the plant. Hence, this is proof of the principle that plants can be vectors of an insect virus and can possibly use this virus as a defense against herbivores.
van Munster
Manuela
M
Plant Research International, P.O Box 16, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands. vanmunstem@nrc.ca
Janssen
Arne
A
Clérivet
Alain
A
van den Heuvel
Johannes
J
D000818:Animals; D001042:Aphids / Q000648:ultrastructure / Q000821:virology*; D001692:Biological Transport / Q000502:physiology; D001937:Brassica / Q000502:physiology* / Q000821:virology*; D017931:DNA Primers; D019223:Densovirinae; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission; D014771:Virion / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology
D017931:DNA Primers
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