CIRAD, UMR PVBMT, St Pierre, La Réunion, France.
Computational Biology Division, Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences, Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.
Nat Rev Microbiol. 2019 Oct;17(10):632-644. doi: 10.1038/s41579-019-0232-3. Epub 2019 Jul 16.
The discovery of the first non-cellular infectious agent, later determined to be tobacco mosaic virus, paved the way for the field of virology. In the ensuing decades, research focused on discovering and eliminating viral threats to plant and animal health. However, recent conceptual and methodological revolutions have made it clear that viruses are not merely agents of destruction but essential components of global ecosystems. As plants make up over 80% of the biomass on Earth, plant viruses likely have a larger impact on ecosystem stability and function than viruses of other kingdoms. Besides preventing overgrowth of genetically homogeneous plant populations such as crop plants, some plant viruses might also promote the adaptation of their hosts to changing environments. However, estimates of the extent and frequencies of such mutualistic interactions remain controversial. In this Review, we focus on the origins of plant viruses and the evolution of interactions between these viruses and both their hosts and transmission vectors. We also identify currently unknown aspects of plant virus ecology and evolution that are of practical importance and that should be resolvable in the near future through viral metagenomics.
第一个非细胞传染性病原体——烟草花叶病毒的发现，为病毒学领域奠定了基础。在随后的几十年里，研究重点是发现和消除对动植物健康的病毒威胁。然而，最近的概念和方法上的革命已经表明，病毒不仅仅是破坏的媒介，而且是全球生态系统的重要组成部分。由于植物占地球生物量的 80%以上，因此植物病毒对生态系统稳定性和功能的影响可能比其他生物界的病毒更大。除了防止像农作物这样遗传同质的植物种群过度生长外，一些植物病毒还可能促进其宿主适应不断变化的环境。然而，对于这种互利共生相互作用的程度和频率的估计仍然存在争议。在这篇综述中，我们重点关注植物病毒的起源以及这些病毒与其宿主和传播媒介之间相互作用的进化。我们还确定了植物病毒生态学和进化中目前未知的方面，这些方面具有实际重要性，并且应该可以通过病毒宏基因组学在不久的将来解决。
