Department of Plant Biology, Uppsala BioCenter, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Linnean Center for Plant Biology, Uppsala, Sweden.
J Exp Bot. 2019 Jun 28;70(12):3029-3034. doi: 10.1093/jxb/erz122.
Research in virology has usually focused on one selected host-virus pathosystem to examine the mechanisms underlying a particular disease. However, as exemplified by the mechanistically versatile suppression of antiviral RNA silencing by plant viruses, there may be functionally convergent evolution. Assuming this is a widespread feature, we propose that effector proteins from diverse plant viruses can be a powerful resource for discovering new regulatory mechanisms of distinct cellular pathways. The efficiency of this approach will depend on how deeply and widely the studied pathway is integrated into viral infections. Beyond this, comparative studies using broad virus diversity should increase our global understanding of plant-virus interactions.
病毒学研究通常集中在一个选定的宿主-病毒病理系统上，以研究特定疾病的机制。然而，正如植物病毒通过机制上的多功能抑制抗病毒 RNA 沉默所例证的那样，可能存在功能趋同进化。假设这是一个普遍的特征，我们提出来自不同植物病毒的效应蛋白可以成为发现不同细胞途径新调节机制的有力资源。这种方法的效率将取决于所研究的途径在多大程度上深入和广泛地整合到病毒感染中。除此之外，使用广泛的病毒多样性进行比较研究应该会增加我们对植物-病毒相互作用的全球理解。
