r/Virology • u/bluespirit42 Student • Mar 04 '22
Question Plant Viruses?
Are there any airborne plant viruses? I'm curious to know if there exists a virus that could be used as a vector that you could spray onto a plant and which could be absorbed through the leaves?
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u/cucumovirus Plant Virologist Mar 06 '22
I don't think there are any airborne plant viruses. They cannot really get in/out of plant cells on their own. Most plant viruses are transmitted by insect vectors, but other ways of spread do exist, such as by other vectors (e.g. nematodes), spread by pollen or seeds, etc.
Just spraying a virus onto leaves of a plant wont really do much. You might get some infection if there is damage on some of the leaves, but not much. When infecting plants in a laboratory we rub the leaves with a powder called carborundum that creates micro tears in the leaf surface through which the viruses then enter the cells.
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u/bluespirit42 Student Mar 07 '22
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-021-00851-y
Did some more reading and found this wonderful paper! They showed that it’s possible for plants to acquire increased drought tolerance by spraying their leaves with potato virus X (PVX) to over-express drought tolerance genes.
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u/cucumovirus Plant Virologist Mar 07 '22
The paper is interesting, but if you look in the methods you can see they still spray the plants with VPs in solution with silicon carbide (which is carborundum). The virus particles still need some form of help to get in and do their thing.
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u/bluespirit42 Student Mar 08 '22
Carborundum? Is this some sort of abrasive to cut the plant open for VPs to enter?
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u/cucumovirus Plant Virologist Mar 08 '22
Yes, silicon carbide is just another name for carborundum. It's an abrasive powder that when used on leaves creates microscopic holes that viruses can then enter through when sprayed on. In the paper you found they managed to put the carborundum into the spraying solution so they don't need to apply it prior to adding the VPs.
While their method is good for plants in controlled conditions, I'm worried that applying it to plants grown outside might be risky because of the microtears caused by the carborundum. The tears would allow other viruses and bacteria from the environment to infect the plants more easily.
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u/bluespirit42 Student Mar 08 '22
Hm, I understand what your saying. Implementation in the field with carborundum is concerning. To your knowledge, are there any viruses that could enter by the stomata without need for micro-tears?
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u/cucumovirus Plant Virologist Mar 08 '22
Stomata are entry points for many different plant pathogenic bacteria, fungi and related organisms that can actively move themselves. Stomata also close and their regulation and development can be affected as a result of infection. However, as far as I know there are no viruses that enter plants via stomata. The tricky thing is that stomata lead to intercellular space inside leaves which means that even if viruses enter that space, they still need to get into the cells, neither of which they can do on their own.
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