Geminivirus C2 protein represses genes involved in sulphur assimilation and this effect can be counteracted by jasmonate treatment

11 pages

Geminiviruses are plant viruses that infect a broad range of crops and cause extensive losses worldwide, having an important economic impact. C2, a multifunctional pathogenicity factor encoded by geminiviruses, has been recently shown to suppress the responses to jasmonates in the host plant, which might at least partially explain its well-established role in pathogenicity. Sulphur is one of the essential macro-elements for plant life, and is considered to have a role in plant defence, in a phenomenon named sulphur-induced resistance (SIR) or sulphur-enhanced defence (SED). In this work, we show that geminivirus C2 protein represses the expression of genes involved in the sulphur assimilation pathway in Arabidopsis, but, interestingly, this effect can be neutralized by exogenous jasmonate treatment. These preliminary results may raise the idea that geminiviruses might be affecting sulphur metabolism, and maybe counteracting SIR/SED, through the manipulation of the jasmonate signalling pathway, which would define a novel strategy in plant-virus interactions and may unveil SIR/SED as an important player in the plant defence against viruses.

The authors would like to thank Adela Zumaquero for her valuable help with the microarray data, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions. This research was supported by a grant from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Innovación/FEDER (AGL2007-66062-C02-02/AGR and AGL2010-22287-CO2) and by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (grant no. BIO2010-15201) and the Junta de Andalucía (grant no. BIO­273). R.L-D. was awarded a Predoctoral Fellowship from the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Cultura.

Peer reviewed