Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias (IVIA), Moncada, 46113-Valencia, Spain.
Instituto de Conservación y Mejora de la Agrodiversidad Valenciana (COMAV), Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022-Valencia, Spain.
Virus Res. 2022 Jun;314:198755. doi: 10.1016/j.virusres.2022.198755. Epub 2022 Mar 24.
Knowledge on diseases caused by Citrus tristeza virus (CTV) has greatly increased in last decades after their etiology was demonstrated in the past seventies. Professor Ricardo Flores substantially contributed to these advances in topics like: i) improvement of virus purification to obtain biologically active virions, ii) sequencing mild CTV isolates for genetic comparisons with sequences of moderate or severe isolates and genetic engineering, iii) analysis of genetic variation of both CTV genomic RNA ends and features of the highly variable 5' end that allow accommodating this variation within a conserved secondary structure, iv) studies on the structure, subcellular localization and biological functions of the CTV-unique p23 protein, and v) potential use of p23 and other 3'-proximal regions of the CTV genome to develop transgenic citrus resistant to the virus. Here we review his main achievements on these topics and how they contributed to deeper understanding of CTV biology and to new potential measures for disease control.
在过去的几十年中，人们对柑橘衰退病毒（CTV）引起的疾病的了解大大增加，因为在 70 年代后期已经证明了其病因。里卡多·弗洛雷斯教授在以下方面做出了重大贡献：i）改进病毒纯化方法以获得具有生物活性的病毒粒子，ii）对温和 CTV 分离株进行测序，以便与中度或严重分离株的序列进行遗传比较和遗传工程，iii）分析 CTV 基因组 RNA 两端的遗传变异以及高度可变的 5'端的特征，这些特征允许在保守的二级结构内容纳这种变异，iv）研究 CTV 独特的 p23 蛋白的结构、亚细胞定位和生物学功能，以及 v）利用 p23 和 CTV 基因组的其他 3'近端区域开发对病毒具有抗性的转基因柑橘。在这里，我们回顾了他在这些主题上的主要成就，以及它们如何有助于更深入地了解 CTV 生物学和新的潜在疾病控制措施。
