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Title: CONTROL OF CUCUMBER MOSAIC VIRUS USING VIRAL SATELLITES (CHAPTER IN BOOK ENTITLED "BIOLOGICAL CONTROL OF PLANT-MICROBE INTERACTIONS)

Author
item Tousignant, Marie
item KAPER, JACOBUS - 1275-25-00

Submitted to: Biological Control of Plant Microbe Interactions
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/1/1998
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: For many years a small gene associated with cucumber mosaic virus called a viral satellite has been shown to significantly influence the nature of the disease caused by its associated plant virus. This short invitational book chapter on the use of satellites to control cucumber mosaic virus is an attempt to bring the concept of biocontrol on a molecular level to the public. Most of the other chapters in this book deal with biocontrol in the more traditional sense. The reader obtains a quick overview of cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) and its satellites, is shown how these satellites function as molecular parasites of CMV, how this parasitism can be harnessed to alleviate the disease symptoms, and how the biocontrol of CMV is curretly being used on a practical scale in China and Japan. The question of the safety of transgenic plant technology is discussed. Scientists wanting an overview of current biocontrol information will benefit from this chapter as well as others looking for new methods for the biocontrol of plant viruses.

Technical Abstract: The cucumoviral satellites constitute the only group of plant viral satellites for which sufficient structural, replicative, biological, and field data have been published to permit an integral discussion of their role in altering the conventional host-parasite relationship that governs the pathogenesis of CMV. This chapter presents a condensed overview ranging from the discovery of CMV satellites and their identification as molecular parasites of the virus, to their role in the etiology of several major tomato necrosis crop disasters in a number of Mediterranean countries, to two methods used to ameliorate the CMV disease. An overview of the methodologies of satellite preinoculation and plant transformation, their current application both commercially and in field trials, and the advantages and disadvantages of both methods are presented. Safety considerations and the future for transgenic plant technology is discussed. .