Journal of Virology, September 2001, p. 8831-8836, Vol. 75, No. 18
0022-538X/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.75.18.8831-8836.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Department of Life Sciences, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan
Received 29 January 2001/Accepted 29 May 2001
Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) encodes a 30-kDa movement protein (MP) which enables viral movement from cell to cell. It is, however, unclear whether the 126- and 183-kDa replicase proteins are involved in the cell-to-cell movement of TMV. In the course of our studies into TMV-R, a strain with a host range different from that of TMV-U1, we have obtained an interesting chimeric virus, UR-hel. The amino acid sequence differences between UR-hel and TMV-U1 are located only in the helicase-like domain of the replicase. Interestingly, UR-hel has a defect in its cell-to-cell movement. The replication of UR-hel showed a level of replication of the genome, synthesis, and accumulation of MP similar to that observed in TMV-U1-inoculated protoplasts. Such observations support the hypothesis that the replicase coding region may in some fashion be involved in cell-to-cell movement of TMV.
This article has been cited by other articles:
| J. Bacteriol. | Mol. Cell. Biol. | Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. |
|---|
| Clin. Vaccine Immunol. | ALL ASM JOURNALS |
|---|