Anti-ToMV polyclonal antibody

Symptom development of a viral plant disease results from molecular interactions between the virus and its host plant. Tomato mosaic virus coat protein (ToMV CP) not only plays a major role in virion assembly and long-distance movement but is also responsible for symptom development in ToMV-infected plants. This study provides evidence that chloroplast ferredoxin I (Fd I) interacts with ToMV CP in a GAL4-based two-hybrid yeast system for screening a Nicotiana tabacum cDNA library. The interaction between CP and Fd I was confirmed by in vitro binding and bimolecular fluorescence complementation assays in plant cells.

The complete genome sequence of a Slovak SL-1 isolate of Tomato mosaic virus (ToMV) was determined from the next generation sequencing (NGS) data, further confirming a limited sequence divergence in this tobamovirus species. Tomato genotypes Monalbo, Mobaci and Moperou, respectively carrying the susceptible tm-2 allele or the Tm-1 and Tm-2 resistant alleles, were tested for their susceptibility to ToMV SL-1. Although the three tomato genotypes accumulated ToMV SL-1 to similar amounts as judged by semi quantitative DAS-ELISA, they showed variations in the rate of infection and symptomatology. Possible differences in the intra-isolate variability and polymorphism between viral populations propagating in these tomato genotypes were evaluated by analysis of the capsid protein (CP) encoding region. Irrespective of genotype infected, the intra-isolate haplotype structure showed the presence of the same highly dominant CP sequence and the low level of population diversity (0.08-0.19%). Our results suggest that ToMV CP encoding sequence is relatively stable in the viral population during its replication in vivo and provides further demonstration that RNA viruses may show high sequence stability, probably as a result of purifying selection.