Zhang X., Hong H., Yan J., Yuan Y., Feng M., Liu Q., Zhao Y., Yang T., Huang S., Wang Ch., Zhao R., Zuo W., Liu S., Ding Z., Huang Ch., Zhang Z., Kundu J. K., Ta X
MOLECULAR PLANT PATHOLOGY 25: , 2024

Keywords: antiviral defence, autophagy, counterdefence, nonstructural protein NSs, nucleocapsidprotein, TSWV
Abstract: Autophagy, an intracellular degradation process, has emerged as a crucial innate im-mune response against various plant pathogens, including viruses. Tomato spotted wiltorthotospovirus (TSWV) is a highly destructive plant pathogen that infects over 1000plant species and poses a significant threat to global food security. However, the role ofautophagy in defence against the TSWV pathogen, and whether the virus counteractsthis defence, remains unknown. In this study, we report that autophagy plays an impor-tant role in antiviral defence against TSWV infection; however, this autophagy-mediateddefence is counteracted by the viral effector NSs. Transcriptome profiling revealedthe up-regulation of autophagy-related genes (ATGs) upon TSWV infection. Blockingautophagy induction by chemical treatment or knockout/down of ATG5/ATG7 signifi-cantly enhanced TSWV accumulation. Notably, the TSWV nucleocapsid (N) protein, amajor component of the viral replication unit, strongly induced autophagy. However,the TSWV nonstructural protein NSs was able to effectively suppress N-induced au-tophagy in a dose-dependent manner. Further investigation revealed that NSs inhibitedATG6-mediated autophagy induction. These findings provide new insights into the de-fence role of autophagy against TSWV, a representative segmented negative-strandRNA virus, as well as the tospoviral pathogen counterdefence mechanism
DOI: 10.1111/mpp.70012 IEB authors: Jiban Kumar