Instituto de Biología Integrativa de Sistemas (CSIC - Universitat de València), Paterna, 46182 València, Spain.
Departamento de Biología, Bioquímica y Ciencias Naturales, Universitat Jaume I, 12071 Castelló, Spain.
J Gen Virol. 2024 Sep;105(9). doi: 10.1099/jgv.0.002023.
is more susceptible to certain viruses during its later developmental stages. The differential responses and the mechanisms behind this development-dependent susceptibility to infection are still not fully understood. Here we explored the outcome of a viral infection at different host developmental stages by studying the response of to infection with turnip mosaic virus at three developmental stages: juvenile vegetative, bolting, and mature flowering plants. We found that infected plants at later stages downregulate cell wall biosynthetic genes and that this downregulation may be one factor facilitating viral spread and systemic infection. We also found that, despite being more susceptible to infection, infected mature flowering plants were more fertile (i.e. produce more viable seeds) than juvenile vegetative and bolting infected plants; that is, plants infected at the reproductive stage have greater fitness than plants infected at earlier developmental stages. Moreover, treatment of mature plants with salicylic acid increased resistance to infection at the cost of significantly reducing fertility. Together, these observations support a negative trade-off between viral susceptibility and plant fertility. Our findings point towards a development-dependent tolerance to infection.
在其后期发育阶段，植物更容易感染某些病毒。对于这种依赖于发育的感染易感性的差异反应和机制仍不完全清楚。在这里，我们通过研究芜菁花叶病毒在三个发育阶段（幼期营养生长、抽薹和成熟开花植物）对 的感染反应，探索了病毒感染在不同宿主发育阶段的结果。我们发现，感染后处于后期发育阶段的植物下调细胞壁生物合成基因，这种下调可能是促进病毒传播和系统感染的一个因素。我们还发现，尽管感染后更容易感染，但与幼期营养生长和抽薹期感染的植物相比，感染成熟开花植物的结实率更高（即产生更多有活力的种子）；也就是说，在生殖阶段感染的植物比在早期发育阶段感染的植物具有更高的适合度。此外，用水杨酸处理成熟植物会增加对感染的抗性，但代价是显著降低结实率。总之，这些观察结果支持了病毒易感性和植物结实率之间的负权衡关系。我们的研究结果表明，植物对感染存在一种依赖于发育的耐受性。
