title: Something new to explore: Plant viruses infecting and inducing gene silencing in filamentous fungi.
abstract: Functional genomics in plants has been facilitated greatly by the use of plant viruses to carry segments of host genes that can then promote the silencing of the RNAs expressed from the corresponding host genes; a process called virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS). The silencing of genes in filamentous fungi is either technically more problematic or labor-intensive, especially if transgenic plants need to be generated first. However, a recent paper from our team demonstrated that a plant virus could infect three related fungal species, as well as express a reporter gene ectopically, and also silence the correspondingly expressed reporter transgene. The gene expression and RNA silencing of the reporter gene was maintained for six passages in culture and also persisted in plants infected by the virus-infected fungus. Here, we consider how the virus can enter and migrate within the fungus, whether the virus can move back and forth between the fungus and the plant and the ramifications of this, the prospects for VIGS being used to silence fungal endogenes and possible biotechnological or therapeutic applications of using plant viruses for expressing foreign proteins in fungi or silencing fungal endogenes.
authors: Dipartimento di Scienze del Suolo, della Pianta e degli Alimenti; Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro; Bari, Italy ; Istituto di Virologia Vegetale del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche; Unità Operativa di Supporto di Bari; Bari, Italy.
authors: Tiziana
authors: T
authors: Mascia
authors: Dipartimento di Scienze del Suolo, della Pianta e degli Alimenti; Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro; Bari, Italy ; Istituto di Virologia Vegetale del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche; Unità Operativa di Supporto di Bari; Bari, Italy.
authors: Donato
authors: D
authors: Gallitelli
authors: Department of Horticultural Sciences; Seoul Women's University; Seoul, South Korea.
authors: Peter
authors: P
authors: Palukaitis
keywords: Fungal transfection; host species jump; plant pathogen adaptation; protein overexpression; virus-induced gene silencing